Undercover Brothers #25 Double Trouble

[SDLagent]

The cover of ''Double Trouble'', book one of three in the forthcoming Double Danger story arc and 25 in the main Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers series, has been revealed at Bookmanager.

[Q]

Jaw dropping but did you see the cover of Murder House?

[Sam Spade]

I don't know, it looks a little...(what's the word) girly?
Hmmm...

[tomswift2002]

Oh no...no...NO!  Not another reality/tv show/movie plot.  I think this is overkill.  And I'm saying that because of the director's chairs and clapboard on the cover.  Two trilogies back to back about murder on a tv/movie set?

[mystery chick 901]

Ahh! The purple is blinding me!

Not exactly how I pictured the Hardy Boys, but whatever.

[SDLagent]

I hoped we might get a plot involving gambling (it is for kids but there has been a casino at one point in the series), I still can hardly believe we are going to have a TV trilogy and movie trilogy back to back! Most of the time I wouldn't like it but this time I'd love it if the cover had nothing to do with the story!

It's strange that this got released before the cover of UB #24 ''Murder House''.

[sleuth_girl]

looks pretty neat to me, but the way they are releasing the covers is really weird... ...still I can't wait to read 'em

[FrankJoeATAC]

I REALLY dont like the new cover art for the HB books  ! And what happened 2 the regular books ? Whats with all the trilogys ?!Do you agree?

[tomswift2002]

I REALLY dont like the new cover art for the HB books  ! And what happened 2 the regular books ? Whats with all the trilogys ?!Do you agree?

Good questions.  I wish we had solid answers, but right now all we've got are theories:

1. The regular stand-alone titles, while popular between April 2005 and December 2005, really started to not sell well and sales have continued to plummet to where S&S thinks the old trilogies trick will help boost sales, just like it did for the Casefiles back in 1992 when the Operation: Phoenix helped boost low sales figures for the series.

2.  People were getting tired of not seeing the boys on the cover of a Hardy Boys book since Digest #160 was released back in March 2000.

[FrankJoeATAC]

I really don't like the new cover art for the Undervoer Brothers book series, but I still LOVE the stories!! They are great!

Keep on writing!

[SkyWarp]

Before anyone screams at me, read the entire post. 

I like the cover art and I like it better than the first cover art for the UB series.  HOWEVER, I do not like the photographs and that goes with both the original UB books and the newer ones. 

If I were designing the books I would keep the current cover art, but slim it up while removing the photographs and adding actual cover art. 

But actual ARTWORK is much more expensive today than photographs.  I highly doubt we will see cover art on these books unless sales drastically increase or the price goes up at least another dollar. 

[NZone]

I dont care if they have pictures on the front as long as it has something to do with the book! But why are they just standing there? At least photoshop some kind of background on that makes sense!

[SDLagent]

Before anyone screams at me, read the entire post. 

I like the cover art and I like better than the first cover art for the UB series.  HOWEVER, I do not like the photographs and that goes with both the original UB books and the newer ones. 

If I were designing the books I would keep the current cover art, but slim it up while removing the photographs and adding actual cover art. 

But actual ARTWORK is much more expensive today than photographs.  I highly doubt we will see cover art on these books unless sales drastically increase or the price goes up at least another dollar. 

Yes, I like the new ''graphic design''  better then the first one, as well. Have any of you noticed that the current lettering now the same as on ''Danger Overseas''?

There are somethings however that are NOT an improvement, (1 the books are no longer numbered (A first in Hardy Boys Land, as the originals had dustjackets with numbers on them), and (2 the inside graphics, they didn't re-do the whole thing, so it just doesn't look very good, I mean take a look at the table on contents page, it's the same as before, just with a outline of the boys where their faces were before, and which is better their faces or an outline?

[tomswift2002]

Actually, the numbering of Hardy Boys books, from what I know, since I haven't seen a lot of dustjackets, didn't start till, at the earliest, the post-WWII 1940's, latest 1959 with the revisions.  If you look at the ads in the early books, the titles aren't numbered, and you really don't see numbered titles in the ads till around 1962, so the numbering system may've only been introduced in '62. 

[SkyWarp]

There are somethings however that are NOT an improvement, (1 the books are no longer numbered (A first in Hardy Boys Land, as the originals had dustjackets with numbers on them),...

They are numbered in the list of books on the inside page where it lists all the books.     But I also do wish they kept numbering them on the spines at least.  But in today's limited series mentality, number anything is BAD.  If you don't have a new #1 every couple months then its bad marketing.  (according to the latest marketing trends, which I disagree with, and I am in marketing).