Makeover Alert: Gossip Girl’s Sporting a New Jacket
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By John A. Sellers -- Publishers Weekly, 6/25/2009
With the third season of the Gossip Girl TV series not starting until September, and with teens ever in need of summer beach reading, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers’ Poppy imprint is promoting its flagship Gossip Girl series by Cecily von Ziegesar (more than 5.5 million copies have been sold in the U.S.) with new slipcover jackets for all 12 titles, as well an iPhone book app.
The new jackets feature members of the cast in stills taken from the TV show (additionally, the jackets, which are printed on both sides, unfold to reveal larger photographic “posters” on the reverse). “The cast is everywhere,” says Andrew Smith, v-p and deputy publisher at LBYR. “They’re all over doing magazine covers and fashion spreads, Chace Crawford was named [Hottest] Bachelor in People magazine. They’re such a part of pop culture now we thought it would be great to have them featured on the entire backlist.”
While plenty of fans of the book series have flocked to the show, Smith says that LBYR is hoping that the jackets—planned as a summer-only limited edition—will attract show devotees who might not have read all the books. The newly jacketed editions became available last month, timed to coincide with an on-air promotion for the books that aired during the May 13 episode of Gossip Girl.
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LBYR is promoting its |
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When lined up, the spines of the 12 slipcovered editions show an image of Serena from the series. |
LBYR has been promoting its apps in online banner ads as well as on the Poppy Web site. This fall, all 12 repackaged Gossip Girl books will be available in a boxed edition, as will something certain to excite fans: the 13th book, I Will Always Love You, arriving as a one-day laydown on November 3 with a 150,000-copy first printing, in which the original cast returns from college for some holiday drama.
