# Do book covers give you an indication on how the book will be?



## Ciuri Di Badia (May 3, 2012)

I have been doing some reading recently and i noted that the books that turned out to be good had very nice covers. I then thought to myself; are all books with good looking covers interesting? what's your experience?


----------



## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

My experience has been that there isn't a correlation between cover quality/appeal and enjoyment of the book.


Mike


----------



## crebel (Jan 15, 2009)

I have found some good books with bad covers, and just got done reading a lousy book with a great cover so they don't always correlate.  However, my overall experience has been a bad cover is more likely to be a poorly written/formatted book and a good cover is an indication that more care has been taken with the entire publishing process.


----------



## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

It's probably likely that books from major publishers and either by major authors or authors they believe may become best-sellers will have the better cover designers employed to design and execute their covers, which I would think increases their chances of having effective and appropriate covers. That's a very broad-brush generalization and bound to fail often, though.

But cover design is truly a complex skill, requiring more than just artistic talent and a good eye; and I'm sure that those who are really, consistently good at it don't come cheaply. (I'm positive that I would really suck at it.)


----------



## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Ciuri Di Badia said:


> I have been doing some reading recently and i noted that the books that turned out to be good had very nice covers. I then thought to myself; are all books with good looking covers interesting? what's your experience?


I think you have gotten lucky. I am finding it is about 50/50 on the covers. This might also depend on what genre(S) you read.
I read a bit of everything so I just hope cover matches genre.


----------



## Ciuri Di Badia (May 3, 2012)

generally, if an author has created a good cover, it means that he has taken alot of care in the publishing process. you can find that his stories are likely to be very interesting. on the other hand, poorly written books do not generally have good covers


----------



## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

Ciuri Di Badia said:


> generally, if an author has created a good cover, it means that he has taken alot of care in the publishing process. you can find that his stories are likely to be very interesting. on the other hand, poorly written books do not generally have good covers


I suspect, therefore, that you read a much higher percentage of self-published authors than I do, if the authors are having that much direct influence on their covers.


----------



## scottmarlowe (Apr 22, 2010)

I think a good cover indicates a better chance of having quality/enjoyable content, but not necessarily.


----------



## Daniel Harvell (Jun 21, 2013)

Covers are obviously an important detail in the production of a book. To me, a good cover says that the author/publisher is detail-oriented and wants to do whatever they can to help the book's success. If he/she/they are  that detail-oriented, then chances are greater that they've put that level of attention into the book too.


----------



## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

For the popular authors that have a large reader base, a simple cover withcolor, great title and their name will make the sales. 
Why?
They have proven themselves to those readers and that loyal fan base trust in those authors enough that they know what they purchase will be a great read!
For those "up and coming" authors, they have to use all the tools in the toolkit to build their reader audience. It can be a game of chance with book cover design.
You visit a large bookstore and spend time  viewing the book jackets. Most of the books carry a beauiful cover. Look over the best sellers list on  amazon, yet again beautiful book covers on majority of the top sellers.
Non-fiction and fiction both are seeing the trend over to a well designed cover. This will continue as markets remain competitve.
Does the cover actually sell the book?
No, the information or story inside is what makes the sale because the curious reader wants to know more about
The better those covers are though, the more appeal it has to all those eyes that possibly see it. So, how do you like your book covers? Sugar coated or sprinkled with salt?

BM


----------



## Sandra K. Williams (Jun 15, 2013)

I've been seeing a lot of books lately with great covers. It's kind of frustrating to check out the book and find out the contents don't come close to matching the cover. I've read some great books with stinker covers. All the cover really tells is genre, and sometimes not even that.


----------



## Ciuri Di Badia (May 3, 2012)

most authors will tell you that their best looking books sells better than others. this is evidence enough that people are attracted to book covers. customers think that the good looks will roughly translate to good stories.


----------



## Brie (Sep 27, 2013)

Very cool topic. Some books with great quality covers - that still don't appeal to my aesthetics - tell me accurately that I'm not going to like the style or content inside. Hence, a "terrible" cover may be great for readers with that taste. Some great covers that I've praised have been fronts for not a not-so-great experience. But it's all so subjective, so there's no hope of 100 percent perfection. If the whole purpose of the cover is to entice readers, a cover that repels readers who wouldn't like the content anyway, might still be considered great, as in, "I'm so glad the cover warned me how bad that book would be." But yes, amazing, mind-blowing talent has been found behind the simplest, dullest, cheapest covers. The Cather in the Rye  http://www.amazon.com/Catcher-Rye-J-P-Steed/dp/0820457299/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1380321896&sr=1-7&keywords=the+catcher+in+the+rye and The Silmarillion  http://www.amazon.com/Silmarillion-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0618126988/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1380321987&sr=1-1&keywords=the+silmarillion are examples great content and simple covers.


----------



## bhazelgrove (Jul 16, 2013)

Unfortunately some very good books have some very bad covers and vice versa.


----------



## DaveinJapan (Jun 20, 2013)

crebel said:


> I have found some good books with bad covers, and just got done reading a lousy book with a great cover so they don't always correlate. However, my overall experience has been a bad cover is more likely to be a poorly written/formatted book and a good cover is an indication that more care has been taken with the entire publishing process.


I agree with this, any indication of sloppy work somewhere probably means more of the same elsewhere.

Usually that's the way it goes, at least.


----------



## PortableHal (Dec 24, 2010)

A good cover doesn't always equal a good book, true. However, if a book has a bad cover, I avoid it unless I love the author. (Even then, I've skipped a few.) These days, I sample almost everything before I buy it.


----------



## Ciuri Di Badia (May 3, 2012)

i agree with you portablehal. good covers do not always translate into good stories. however, many authors who took their time to make good covers also took time to create good stories.


----------



## lmroth12 (Nov 15, 2012)

I don't find that a professional cover necessarily indicate the quality of the book. Tolkien's artwork for *The Hobbit * was distinctive, although the work of an amateur. Yet it was perfect for it.

What I _am_ tired of, though, are the covers that depict a handsome hero or beautiful heroine and you read the book and discover that he is ordinary looking and she is downright plain, yet they fall in love anyway. If they are not good-looking, why can't the book cover indicate that? Afraid no one will pick it up and read it? I think it sends the wrong signals to teens that they must be gorgeous to get attention when the book itself proves that it's what is inside that counts.


----------



## Daniel Harvell (Jun 21, 2013)

I was reminded of this thread when at the grocery store earlier this week browsing the wine selection. I know nothing about wineries, types of wine, best years for wine, etc. So what's left to go on when selecting a bottle? The label. I made my selection based solely on that. Obviously with books today, we can read sample chapters, summaries, reviews, etc., but still it's that cover/label that pulls us in. Like with most products and services, it's all about the marketing.


----------



## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Daniel Harvell said:


> I was reminded of this thread when at the grocery store earlier this week browsing the wine selection. I know nothing about wineries, types of wine, best years for wine, etc. So what's left to go on when selecting a bottle? The label. I made my selection based solely on that. Obviously with books today, we can read sample chapters, summaries, reviews, etc., but still it's that cover/label that pulls us in. Like with most products and services, it's all about the marketing.


I always buy wine based on the label. Or an interesting name. Beer too.

Once I find one I like I remember it, but when it's 'try something new' mode, I find that to be the best way. If the wine's bad, at least it was an interesting bottle.


----------



## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Funny about the wine. I am always on an endless quest of finding good drinkable wine for under $10. So I try a lot. But I first go by the grape of course, then I look at the country. 
If all fails I go for boats. Yep, boats. I love boats. So put a nice ship on it and I'll look.  . I have one in the rack right now with a very nice ship. Nice sails. I have to have sails on a boat. I keep the empty bottles of those with nice labels like that too. 
But I don't think wine compares much with a book. 

One type of cover that turns me off right away is sims looking ones. You know like video game faces. Also stuff that looks like collages. You know, the craft where you just keep gluing different type designs on top of each other to decorate thingies with. Those covers just look so thrown together I start to wonder if the text is too. No care in the cover can mean no care in the book. Some covers look like the author laid out the parts of the cover on the kitchen table and gave it to their 3 and 5 year olds and let them have at it. Some elmers glue and scan it on in.  

Only time I make an exception there is when its a back list title I have been waiting on. Those are cases where the books are already vetted, have been published and all that. It more breaks my heart when I see an old out of print favorite coming on kindle and the cover is atrocious. I feel bad the the author as nobody will look at it. I have seen a few of those. 

But a new book, new author? No excuse really. Oh and the fonts, the horror of fonts I see sometimes. Combined with the sims looking characters it just makes me go  . 

I don't always have to "like" a cover, but I expect it to look professional you know. It can be professional and me not liking the look of it.


----------



## lazarusInfinity (Oct 2, 2012)

It can go either way.  I've come across books with great cover designs that didn't live up to the hype.  The catch of course is that everyone wants to have a professionally made cover that grabs the reader's attention.


----------



## sprite031979 (Sep 15, 2013)

A good book cover can indicate a good book. If the author took the time to make sure that they had a great cover that really conveys what they are portraying in the book shows that if they took the good deal of time to make a perfect cover then they spent just as much time and detail in their writings.


----------



## Ciuri Di Badia (May 3, 2012)

At least we are all in agreement. even though not always, a good cover is an indicator of a good book. When i'm not well conversant with an author, i usually leave the book cover to guide me.


----------



## hs (Feb 15, 2011)

I haven't found much correlation, except that really bad covers tend to imply that not much effort was put into writing the story too. To confound the problem, in many cases, what constitutes a good cover is also up for interpretation. You may not like a cover that I consider to be good and vice versa.


----------



## Avrettos (Nov 18, 2013)

I guess you are looking for congruence, for a cover that presses the same emotional buttons as the story will. If it is a great cover that get's you to open or buy the book and the writing is not what you expected, is it the cover you will be disappointed by or the writing? The two need to work together to inspire and entertain the right people. If a over is of a motorbike and the book is about motorbikes, you're probably happy in the same way that if a cover makes you feel a sense of mystery and you open it up and the writing draws you in and intrigues you, you'll probably be happy. Now the challenge is to go away and design a cover for a mystery book about motorbikes...hmmm.


----------



## Grace Elliot (Mar 14, 2011)

I read a lot of historical romance and a lot of the covers are beautiful - BUT don't have anything much to do with the content and I'm beginning to find this tiresome. There is a current vogue for gorgeous dresses (usually half undone) and often the garments aren't even historically accurate to the time period of the book. A quick browse of the Amazon top 100 reveals a huge % of covers that are all very similar. I don't get it.
Why isn't there more variety in HR covers? Are other genres similarly limited?


----------



## christina_johnson (Jun 9, 2012)

I know that a eye-catching cover makes it more likely I will give the book a closer look. From there, if I like the description, I will grab a copy. Although I have read books with good covers and not so good content.


----------



## David King (May 6, 2013)

I have read good books with awful covers and vice versa. I suppose the old saying is true that you can't judge a book by its cover, so I generally read the blurb to see if the book would interest me and use that to influence my buying decision instead of the cover itself.


----------



## elaineorr (Mar 18, 2012)

I think that a cover tells a reader how important an author thinks the cover is, and whether s/he is willing to spend the money it takes to have an enticing cover.  I know my earliest covers were not very good because I did them--it's what I could afford at the time. It only took one comment from a reviewer to get me to change my priorities. Luckily, a list serve I'm on (a Yahoo group--Murder Must Advertise) led to a wonderful artist, Patty G. Henderson.

That said, I do pay attention to covers because they are good visual clues to the content. I always read the synopsis, though. If it does not sound interesting, I don't buy--not even for a freebie.


----------



## belindaf (Jan 27, 2011)

I agree with the masses. It's 50/50 for me, too. Cover art is one of those things that either people are talented at (or can afford to hire out to someone who is talented at it) OR the author tries to go it themselves with little to no graphic design experience. Being a good writer does NOT make you a good cover artist. I actually just started reading a book last night that I almost didn't read because the cover was kind of 'meh' for me. It's not terrible, but it's not doing the book any favors. The book is VERY good. So far, it's professionally written, technically edited, and super entertaining if you're a fan of hard luck stories and don't mind some expletives.


----------



## Zoe York (May 12, 2013)

I've gotten sucked into buying a book because I fell for its cover, only to discover pretty crappy writing on the inside. I've never returned these books, because a) I shop at Kobo and I don't think they do returns LOL and b) part of me thinks the author deserves my nickel (or whatever) because, bravo marketing. In the past, I left honest reviews of both the inside and outside of the book. Now I just bite my tongue. Sometimes so hard it bleeds.


----------



## Mark Young (Dec 13, 2010)

I am echoing some of the responses above, but a good book cover does not mean the content will be good. However, if the book cover is a real dog, I would guess that there is not much between the covers to bark about. A good cover tells me that the author may have taken the time to give us good content.


----------



## MariaESchneider (Aug 1, 2009)

I think they do influence buying.  I do a book club/buddy read once a month on my blog, and we choose the book based on BLURB only--no covers, no titles, no author.  It's really fascinating to watch the voting and then the reactions after the reveal happens.    A few people have even read outside their normal genres because they really liked a blurb they might not have considered otherwise.  It's a fun way to pick books and these days there are a lot of bad covers out there so it's even more fun than it might be otherwise!  It's all in good fun and sometimes the covers don't go with the blurb at all (or the book).


----------



## Alessandra Kelley (Feb 22, 2011)

No.

www.goodhsowsir.co.uk

A site of regrettable covers from science fiction and fantasy, many of which are brilliant classics.

(Safe for work, but only because some images are censored with, um, cut-outs of sheep.)


----------



## heidi_g (Nov 14, 2013)

Alessandra Kelley said:


> No.
> 
> www.goodhsowsir.co.uk
> 
> ...


Agree. We were in the bookstore this weekend, browsing scifi and fantasy and I was amazed at how many awful covers I saw...

So for me, as a rule, I find no direct correlation between the quality of the cover and the quality of the story, or the quality of the writing. I've read some great stories with truly awful covers, and some books with amazing covers have made my eyes glaze over. I've also found poor books with poor covers and great books with great covers. I rely more on samples and blurbs. Reviews and word of mouth can be tricky, too, if you're an eclectic reader.


----------



## Tony Richards (Jul 6, 2011)

MariaESchneider said:


> I think they do influence buying.


There's more than 'think' involved in this. Years back someone -- a major bookseller, I believe -- commissioned a survey and found that, when it comes to authors that a shopper is unfamiliar with, a good quality cover made it around 80% more certain that that shopper would at least pick up the book and give it a look. And it it works for print books on the shelf, surely it works for e-books too?


----------



## Lorelei Logsdon (Feb 4, 2014)

My opinion is that the quality of the cover shows the level of care put into the book. One of the things I'm not crazy about is photograph covers used for fiction. If it's a non-fiction book about a particular place, a photograph is appropriate; otherwise, please don't. Just my $0.02.


----------



## LSBurton (Jan 31, 2014)

I think when it comes to traditionally published books, it's not necessarily the case. I know I'm attracted to books with very minimalist covers -- I think for the cleverness of getting the idea across with very little information. But then I'm attracted to just any kind of spacey scene when it comes to science fiction, so the cover then doesn't matter.

However, with self-published work, I think it at least shows the author is paying attention and trying to put out a quality product.


----------

