I was in a bookstore at Pearson Airport today. I was just killing time, and I noticed the usual display of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight novels with their stark black covers and gothic fonts. Er, hang on. I looked a little closer:
They’re an entirely different set of vampire werewolf novels by Kelley Armstrong. Is it me, or do those books look a little too much like the Twilight covers? Here’s the cover of Eclipse, the third Twilight novel, for comparison:
Right down to the wide kerning (or is that tracking? I never know) on the author’s name, eh? Doesn’t the design of Ms. Armstrong’s book covers seem like an incredibly cynical attempt to trade on Twilight’s success?
DarrenBarefoot.com 
aw, man. they totally do. Which sucks, because Kelley Armstrong’s books are WAY better. bah!
(also, the original covers are much better.)
It’s one thing when it’s a “new style” book that is trying to get in on the craze, but check out this copy of Wuthering Heights:
http://www.theawl.com/2009/08/old-book-gets-fresh-vampirey-makeover
I’m just going to start placing bleeding flowers on a black background on anything that I want to sell.
That’s tracking. And it’s obviously inspired by Twilight. I imagine the publisher requested this new look and the designer probably felt guilty doing it.
To be fair though, the 2002 edition of Bitten (which pre-dates Twilight) used red on black as well: http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780770429096
And if the change sells a bunch of copies, I’m sure the author and publisher and store will be happy.
I think the same thing has happened with the look of movies. Ever since the Lord of the Rings films popularized the grey, Mistes Of Olde Tyme™ appearance (applied as a sort of digital “wash” to every frame, and emerging from a similar look in The Matrix), it seems no action-adventure film, from Harry Potter to The Chronicles of Narnia to Wolverine to Underworld, can appear anything but the same.
If Speed Racer hadn’t sucked so much, I would have admired it for at least being willing to use colour.
They also share publishers: both are published in the UK by Little, Brown, & Co. In Canada, Random House publishes Kelley Armstrong’s books and Meyer’s audio books. Not a coincidence!
Yup, along with every other teen book cover. The Wuthering Heights link posted above is a perfect example.
It’s no surprise that every kind of media is trying to piggyback off Twilight’s success… the revamped (no pun intended) book covers, the new teen vampire TV series popping up everywhere… the vampire MMO games advertising on every Twilight site.
*sigh*
@Donna: Better covers and writing? Grow up, would you? And quit sounding just like a side-tacking fangirl. All she/he did was compare covers (who wrote the article), they never said “Which is better . . . ?”
Grow up!
It doesn’t matter if they look alike. Kelley Armstrongs book were out and better way before Twilight was. At least Kelley’s book have a great storyline. One that makes sense and isn’t depressing.