The Story of Tiny Rapunzel part 3

We launched Rapunzel and watched to see if other publishers would print large too. They did not. Everybody went smaller--this was right when the Wimpy Kid books started blowing up. That size, or thereabouts, became the golden size for middle-grade books.

One theory was that kids thought of large books as picture books--in other words, large books were for little kids, little books were for large kids. Middle-graders want to be anything but "little kids."

The middle-grader graphic novel shelf shrank to fit the smaller-sized books. Some of these shelves were too small for Rapunzel.

So, when the time came for reprinting a new edition of Rapunzel's Revenge (and Calamity Jack) we decided to go smaller. I was excited for a new edition, and suggested we do new covers. Not because I disliked the old covers--I just love alternate covers. Rapunzel never got an alternate paperback cover, I thought this would be a good time to repackage the books with a snappy new cover. Here's one sketch:

In the end, the alternate cover idea didn't take, and we stuck with the old, classic covers.

Now you know the story! What do you think of the new small versions?