The Thing About Covers

So I wanted to talk about book covers, and more specifically, when publishers change the covers, maybe before the book comes out, maybe halfway during the series, or even for the last book.

The most recent example is the covers for Stephanie Perkins, the covers for Anna and the French Kiss, and Lola and the Boy Next Door, had models, and were real life stuff. The new ones have familiar icons from the city they are set in, the Eiffel Tower, the San Francisco bridge, and I think the Empire State Building, because just because they are at School of America in Paris, doesn't mean that it's set there the whole book. Then the titles have huge fonts, there's a symbol, a heart, a star, and a rose, and then a kind of water colour background.

I like the new covers, I do. The thing I don't like, is that now there's not going to be a real life type cover for Isla to match the 2 previous books. I'm a purist, I guess, I like to have my covers the same way. So now the only way to have that, and to have the whole series, is to use the new covers. But not everybody will like the new covers.

Which is why I came up with a thought. And it's in the idea of compromise, kinda.

My idea being, why don't the publishers, if they change the design in any major way, so that if they didn't have the same author and title and synopsis (potentially, that can be changed slightly) on them, then they wouldn't have been thought the same book, that if they have to do this, that they continue the style of the covers, while simultaneously having the new covers for the books? That way, there's 2 sets (or more, there are a lot of covers for the classics) so that people can decide which type of cover they want (if they didn't buy the first type right after it was published)

It might mean more money spent on designing covers (and I know that can be a difficult task) but in the long run, I think this could work, because, for example, there's the Across the Universe covers. They changed them from the starry background with figures, to metal in various states (frozen, heating up, being covered with greenery) so they could attract different readers. I personally loved the starry covers. But they didn't make a starry cover for Shades of Earth. But then with my idea, people could choose which type they wanted, and have the same covers for the series, and the new fans that were attracted by the new covers could have them. Wouldn't that offset the cost of making multiple covers? Also, more books could be printed, as there would be 2 sources wanting them!

I think that there should be examples of something like this, but if there have, I don't know about them,

I can think off the top of my head 5 series that have had cover changes. Shatter Me, Across the Universe, Nightshade, Delirium, and the above contemporary novels by  Stephanie Perkins. Who would like it if the covers had stayed the same, or at least had the same type of cover, even if there was a another style, if they kept the first style going alongside the second, how much happier would you be, to have covers that matched? I know I would!

Thoughts?