Book Covers

[bropous]

Okay, it is really shallow of me, and certainly goes counter to the old tried and true "can't judge a book by its cover" adage, but:

If a sci-fi/fantasy book has a really dull cover, I tend to pass it right by. I know I am missing some really good books. case in point: George Martin. I've passed these right by for years, because the cover just was so plain.

For me, the visual "hook" of an intriguing cover at least gets my attention to look deeper. Then, I look at the blurb on the back (or inside cover) to see what about it I would find interesting. A lot of books just rely on a short excerpt from the story, and then one or two sentences, to get you to buy it. For me, it is poor marketing.

However, the fact is that I have also seen some really cool covers but have not been drawn to purchasing the book. I guess it has to be a combination of a good cover, an intriguing blurb, and story material that appeals to me. It is a confession of a weakness, but then again, we all have our own criteria for what we find interesting.

How do the rest of you feel about the visual presentation of a cover in going further into finding whether you want to buy/read a book?

[hectorberlioz]

I use to do the same thing with book covers for fantasy novels:p...not so much these days since I don't read much fantasy anymore...not enough time you know;)

[tolkienfan]

I try not to ever judge a book by it's cover. I used to when I was younger, and it always turned out that the ones my mom forced me to read were far better than the sparkley covered girly books.
Another example: I'm trying to get my little sister to read good books, but she insists on reading junk because it has a cute puppy on the front. :rolleyes: She's learning though, when I point out that the ones she rereads 100 times are the ones I told her to read, and the cute junk goes in the trash.
So I try to read the books with the boring covers first, so I don't lose interest before giving it a chance. Of course you can never tell, just because it has a good cover doesn't mean it's bad.
:) :) :)

[brownjenkins]

A cool cover will definitely draw me to a book. I remember buying this book: http://www.fortunecity.com/rivendell/tekken/100/jpgs/jshadows.jpg (the site doesn't support hotlinking, so you have to copy/paste the url)

just because I liked the cover, and it turned out to be a great story as well. :D

Interestingly enough, this cover (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ed/Jack_of_Shadows.jpg) is a much more common cover for the same book, and I'll admit that my eye probably would have never been drawn to that one.

[Earniel]

I must confess I am led by eye-catching covers too. It's perhaps silly to think that books that have gorgeous or intriguing covers have ditto stories, but there you go. Those books are not necessarily what I end up buying, but they're usually the first I take off the shelf to read the back-text. That text and what I may have heard of the author or the book itself determine whether I take it home or not.

[bropous]

What I hate is the recent trend not to tell you what the book is about on the back cover blurb, but listing a group of glowing praise from this one or that one instead of telling us what the story is about.

[brownjenkins]

What I hate is the recent trend not to tell you what the book is about on the back cover blurb, but listing a group of glowing praise from this one or that one instead of telling us what the story is about.

I agree. Though sometimes you can tell a bit about the book by how obscure the sources for the quotes are. :D

[tolkienfan]

What I hate is the recent trend not to tell you what the book is about on the back cover blurb, but listing a group of glowing praise from this one or that one instead of telling us what the story is about.
Oh, yes! :mad: That is really annoying.

[Tessar]

I agree. I tend to pick up a book if the title looks interesting, then I glance at the cover art, and from there I tend to look for a blurb.

Then usually if any one of those things catch my interest, I pop the book open to the middle-ish and glance over a few paragraphs, then skip a few pages, and do that three or four times. That usually gives me a feel for whether or not I'll like the writing style at least.

[Mari]

I usually read books from the library, so you mostly see the title first. The title is what determines for me whether or not I am going to read the back of the book.
If the information on the back is appealing, I try it. :)
Come to think of it, I usually don't look at the cover at all untill it is on my desk.

I do agree that it is utterly annoying if there is no proper information about the book on the backside... :mad:

[The Telcontarion]

I think everyone goes through the stage of looking at the covers and other such gimmicks that are used.