Why I bought "Throne of Glass" in Paperback (and Regret Nothing)

Buying books for a library is a balancing act.  You need to stay on budget while catering to interests, reading levels, local school requirements, and pop culture while attempting to predict what books will be "the next big thing" and what books you can wait for.  It's all great fun when you open those boxes and get to add to your beautiful collection, though.

Overall, we need to make sure these books move, that they circulate and generate great ideas, worlds, and escapes for our patrons and do not sit as wallflowers for the next ten years.  Here is where the title comes in: Why I decided to purchase Sarah J. Mass's up and coming book series Throne of Glass in paperback rather than hardcover.  Hardcover usually makes sense, right?  It certainly lasts longer and, with the amount of handling library books get, we need to ensure we spend wisely.  Well, let's take a look at them:

Hardcover on left. Paperback on right.

The paperback looks significantly cooler than the hardcover!  Given a choice between a generic girl who happens to have a knife strapped to her arm and a girl who looks like she walked out of an intense battle in Final Fantasy, I decided to risk the damage the book will inevitably take because, despite what we may think, we all judge books by their cover.  Anyone who has ever had a teen turn down a potential read because of the cover knows what I'm talking about.  Even the strongest Reader's Advisory can be shattered to pieces as soon as someone sees a cover that does not meet their expectations.

Overall, I think this is the better route to help draw teens into a new series, enticing them with a cover that speaks of power, action, and an eye-catching color palette.