SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Do you choose a book because of its cover? (Suggested by the thread 'Best SF/F book covers' below).

This post was prompted, in part, by a question that has been rattling around in my head for a very long time. Do you choose a book purely based on its cover? Yes, you read the blurb; yes, you read the reviews; but first of all, surely, it is the cover that catches your eyes and draws you in.

An example. A long time ago Frank Herbert wrote Dune. It received rave reviews and plaudits and won the Hugo and Nebula awards. But I didn't pick up the book until Dune Messiah arrived. It was the cover by Bruce Pennington that got my attention. I picked up the book and looked at it and then decided that I had better read Dune first. So my thanks go to Bruce Pennington for helping me discover Frank Herbert!

My thanks also go to Bruce Pennington for getting me interested in Gene Wolfe's 'Book of the New Sun' series, and to Ian Miller for his stunning covers of the old Panther editions of H P Lovecraft's 'At the Mountains of Madness' (can't find this edition) and The Haunter of the Dark and Other Tales of Horror. The list goes on and on.

Obviously there are a huge number of books I have read that did not come to me like this. There were recommendations, library discoveries, must reads, etc. But the ones that stick in my mind, the ones I really remember, are the books whose covers reached out and grabbed me!

So the question is this. Is it just me, or has anybody been affected in this way, where it is the cover, and only the cover, that pulls you in? And what style of cover? Fine art, photographic realism, abstact or surreal?

(As you might gather, I rather like book cover art)

While I like some cover art, and it may serve to catch my eye, it rarely affects me unless it is to discourage me from reading the book in question.

Title, author, blurb and /or preview affect my decision much more.

V.W. wrote: "While I like some cover art, and it may serve to catch my eye, it rarely affects me unless it is to discourage me from reading the book in question.

Title, author, blurb and /or preview affect my ..."

How overriding is your discouragement though? I have certainly had that feeling, looking at a cover and thinking that I would not touch the book in question with a barge pole. It's quite visceral. I imagine that the liking and the disliking work in the same way.

When I first came across Dune I remained unaffected. I needed the impetus of good cover art to make the leap. The title meant nothing much to me at the time, as did the the name 'Frank Herbert', and the blurb did not help. Perhaps I just wasn't in a receptive mood. But come the right image and I was pulled in.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I like books as physical objects as well as being gateways to the imagination.

Yes. The cover is a semiotic signal. If there is a space ship it's SF. Unicorns are fantasy. If the title is in purple in a curly font and there is a female on the cover, it's romance; if the background behind her is dark it's a Gothic romance. This is accepted to the point that often people do not care if there is actually no space ship or unicorn in the story at all. That's why a misguided cover is so deadly; if you are signalling it's a Gothic romance but it's actually a noir space opera then everyone who might have enjoyed your book cannot find it.
If the work is a self-pub, on Kindle say, then a crappy cover is always worrisome. The cover is the first thing you see of a work, on line or on the bookstore shelf. It is the very first communication, the adumbration of the work to come.

Brenda wrote: "Yes. The cover is a semiotic signal. If there is a space ship it's SF. Unicorns are fantasy. If the title is in purple in a curly font and there is a female on the cover, it's romance; if the backg..."

Semiotics aside, though, are you ever drawn in by just the cover, and say to yourself, consciously or unconsciously, 'I must look a little deeper'? And is it the substance, or the execution that does the trick?

Yes. I won't NOT read a book because of it's cover, but the chances are more likely that I won't end up getting to the point of reading the synopsis or the reviews if the cover doesn't catch my interest. At the very least I think the cover should indicate, even to a small degree, what the book is about, or what genre. It's a quick way for the reader to zero in on what may interest them.

Simon wrote: "Brenda wrote: "Yes. The cover is a semiotic signal. If there is a space ship it's SF. Unicorns are fantasy. If the title is in purple in a curly font and there is a female on the cover, it's romanc..."

Sure, I've been drawn in by covers many times. I'm not sure I ever picked up a book and began reading it immediately because of the cover. But then again, maybe I have.

I know that there have been books that I've been put off by either the writer or description, but still glanced at a sample because of the cover. The writer - there are certain writers that annoy me so if I know it's by them, I'll probably skip (I still might give it a shot, everything else being equal, though; then there are authors I'll never read anything by). Too many descriptions are widely out of line with what's actually within the covers for me to 'just' go by descriptions.

Course many a cover is widely out of line with what's within the covers as well. But I grew up somewhat instinctually knowing that (I kind of assume the cover is just signaling what type the book might be, as opposed to having anything to do with the actual story - sad as that might be). I had to learn that descriptions are often misleading, and occasionally look like they accidentally got attached to the wrong book.

Sarah wrote: "Yes. I won't NOT read a book because of it's cover, but the chances are more likely that I won't end up getting to the point of reading the synopsis or the reviews if the cover doesn't catch my int..."

So what does a cover have to do to catch your interest? This is probably hard to analyse, simply because we all drawn to different things. I was drawn to Gene Wolfe's The Shadow of the Torturer because the cover was beautifully rendered and wonderfully evocative. Did the artwork match the work itself? Yes it did. I thoroughly enjoyed the tale and went on to read the entire series. And I think this is the thing. Somewhere, however it happened, the artist managed to distil something about the book. The casual browser sees this, hears that little voice inside saying 'here is truth', and the book is claimed.

The same applies to a bad cover, I think. Something says 'here is a lie', whatever the lie may be, and we thus avoid the book like the plague.

Lexxi Kitty wrote: "Course many a cover is widely out of line with what's within the covers as well. But I grew up somewhat instinctually knowing that (I kind of assume the cover is just signaling what type the book might be, as opposed to having anything to do with the actual story - sad as that might be). I had to learn that descriptions are often misleading, and occasionally look like they accidentally got attached to the wrong book."

Artifice that is ultimately self-defeating. By lying to the prospective buyer, the seller is burning the very ground that nurtures them. I like my covers to be truthful, and, for the most part I think you can spot the liars. They aren't so careful because their aims are at odds with the matter in hand, which should be to reflect the tale they are telling.

I think this is where good cover art works, because it has something of the spirit of the book buried within it. And that brings up the other point of interest here. Can this be better achieved artistically, finely drawn or rendered art, or by using photo-realism, manipulated photo's, stock images, etc?

For me, Fantasy and Sci-Fi work best when drawn, painted or rendered. Such techniques are far better suited to the depiction of a heightened reality. But I imagine there are others here that might disgaree with that assertion.

I won't disregard a book entirely because of an ugly cover, but a pretty cover will get me interested in a book I wouldn't have picked up otherwise. (e.g., The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black. The synopsis didn't interest me in the least, but the cover was so gorgeous I bought and read it anyway)

But Grace, did you like it?

I need both cover and synopsis to even get to the point of looking at GR reviews, for an unfamiliar author.

Otoh, I'm glad that the used copy of The Fellowship of the Talisman that I found does not have that silly cover (it's a hardcover that lost its jacket). I bought it because it's by one of my favorites, Clifford D. Simak, and am enjoying it... but the cover does not truly fit.

... and then, define 'fit' ... The scene on the cover of Simak's story does truly depict an episode in the story. But: it doesn't fit the mood, the vibe, the themes, of the story. I'm seeing a lot more literary quality than I would expect if I were looking at the pulpy sword&sorcery cover....

Yes. I think we all judge books by the cover to some degree.

IMO, a book cover should:

1) Catch your attention. To do that it needs to
_1a) Look professionally designed
_1b) Spark interest in the contents (i.e., it draws you in)
2) Evoke an emotional response from the potential reader
3) Give the potential reader an inkling of the books genre/topic/mood

You've got about 3 seconds to do that.

This is why I strongly urge indie authors to hire a book cover designer rather than trying it themselves. Effective design is much more complicated and subtle than just adding text over a pretty picture. Everything needs to work into one contiguous package. When you first look at a good book cover you don't see the picture the title or the author, you see the whole design. Then your eye will move to the title, the cover art, the author (unless the author's really well known, in which case the author's name is give precedence over the title).

All this should spark your curiosity, make you desire to know more, read the blurb, read the sample, maybe look at reviews (take them with a huge grain of salt!).

I don't think a book cover has ever made me buy a book, but bad ones have certainly made me not look closer. (And good ones have made me look closer at books that failed miserably in the blurb and/or sample content department, leading to no sale!)

I absolutely judge books by their covers. When I was a kid I used to walk through the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section at the local bookstore. The order of operations was basically:

[1] Is the cover interesting? If yes ...
[2] Does the back-cover synopsis sound interesting? If yes ...
[3] Open to a random page and read a little bit to see what the style is like. If it looks good, cash register and a bike ride home. If not, start over.

So a book that didn't have an engaging cover didn't usually get a synopsis read. These days I think it's actually *more* important, because most of my book buying is electronic and there are so many books available. Part

For modern books I tend towards a stylized, slightly abstract aesthetic (e.g. The Sisters Brothers, The Mechanical). For older sci-fi/fantasy I gravitate to the painted covers, which is why it makes me kind of sad to see the reworks of, for example, Timothy Zahn's books:

vs.


Regardless, I want something with some style! If all you can tell me about your book with the cover is that it's going to have man/woman with sword looking stoic (placed front and center), and maybe a castle and/or a generic fantasy monster, you'll have to hope that someone specifically recommends your book to me. For example Cazador y Presa has the combination of vaguely fey woman and fantasy sword with a bookish looking guy with glasses, a leather jacket, and a pistol against a swirling backdrop of clouds with eyes and teeth. Whatever is going on in this book, it's not likely to be generic extruded fantasy product.

One of the things that I think makes the biggest subconscious difference for me is the lettering, which also seems to be a common factor that differentiates professional covers from self-made.

See also:
Kevin Hearne discusses the cover process for Hounded: http://suvudu.com/2011/01/making-a-bo...

Also, some covers that grabbed me:
The Box and the Dragonfly
The Mysterious Benedict Society
Starrigger

And a cover that very directly resulted in my buying the book:

(again, what is going on here?!)

@Cheryl surprisingly enough, the book was really good. A little out of my usual genre choices, but I enjoyed it immensely :)

I cut my SF-reading teeth in the 1960s on the Gollancz hardback novels that all had plain yellow covers. That taught me that a book's cover is an unnecessary irrelevance - that, plus the simple reflection that the picture on the cover and the words inside the book are the work of two different people in two different art forms, and the quality of one is no guide whatsoever to the quality of the other.

Great question! I think the cover matters most in a bricks-and-mortar bookstore. That's where I'm most likely to pick up a book because it has a beautiful or intriguing cover. When I'm shopping online, I'm just looking for books I already know about and know I want to read. Those covers just have to look professional enough not to turn me off. (And part of looking professional is having it look like the genre it's supposed to be.)

Matthew wrote: "And a cover that very directly resulted in my buying the book:"

I am seriously impressed by that cover. I have never seen that before. Have you read it? And does the cover reflect what's inside?

Chris wrote: "I cut my SF-reading teeth in the 1960s on the Gollancz hardback novels that all had plain yellow covers."

You know, I went to my local library to see if they had any more H P Lovecraft after buying a couple of the Panther edition books (with the Ian Miller covers), and was really disappointed by the plain yellow dust jackets. "But this stuff is brilliant!" I complained to the Librarian (horn-rimmed glasses and hair pulled back in a spectacularly fierce bun). "Couldn't they have come up with something better than this to honour the content?" All she did was glare at me. (I was only fourteen).

Seriously though I am not certain I agree with you on this. I think it does matter. If nothing else, the quality of the cover shows you that care was taken, care enough to reflect the content of the book and present it in the best possible way. Would I have discovered HPL without the cover art? I am not certain of that, especially in those days.

Micah wrote: "You've got about 3 seconds to do that."

Agreed. The cover must grab you.

Simon wrote: "Sarah wrote: "Yes. I won't NOT read a book because of it's cover, but the chances are more likely that I won't end up getting to the point of reading the synopsis or the reviews if the cover doesn'..."

Good question and I'm sure everyone has different taste in covers or in what they consider good quality. For me, it mostly comes down to looking professional and something that indicates at least what the genre is. If a book cover looks like a title page from a grade 6 book report I'm more likely to dismiss it in search for something else unless I am already familiar with and like the author. Romance is definitely one of my less favourite genres so if a science fiction novel has a romantic looking cover I'll usually pass it by. I quite like military science fiction but if I see a woman in a skimpy uniform, I'll usually bypass it as it doesn't give me a confident feeling that the book will be a realistic representation of the military type setting that I enjoy reading about.

Simon wrote: Would I have discovered HPL without the cover art? I am not certain of that, especially in those days.

Interesting. I imagine quite a lot of readers find their way into a genre because of visual images - and I suppose sometimes those images may be the covers of books, though in my own case what initially got me into SF was the Dan Dare strip in the Eagle comic, plus (to a lesser extent) Superman comics. (I'm going back to about 1960 now, when I was seven or eight.) What got me into fantasy, by contrast, was hearing The Hobbit and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe read on the radio at much the same time.

However, it does seem to me that once one has become addicted to a genre, choosing a book by its cover comes to seem - or should come to seem, if one is awake and alert - a rather unreliable way of choosing one's reading matter. I've come across self-published books on Kindle with excellent covers, yet when I read the first few pages, it rapidly becomes clear that the author can't write very well. Does a good cover really show any more than that the publisher had the money to spend on commissioning a good artist? I doubt it.

Personally these days I tend to find a good author and then read everything they've written. You don't find a good author by looking at pictures on covers, you find him or her by recommendation or reading reviews. And once you've found a good author, there's no longer any need to take notice of the covers of their books. Which is not to say that a good cover doesn't give pleasure - for instance, I very much like the cover of my copy of Lyonesse, which I have recently read (twice, in fact, because I think it's so good). But I bought the book (some years ago now) because it was by Jack Vance, and also because I've always been fascinated by Lyonesse as a mythical place; not because of the cover.

@Simon: I haven't gotten around to it yet -- it didn't quite make it into my autumn spate of horror books this past year, and based on the description and the chunk I read to get a feel for style I have it slated for this coming October.

Unless I get antsy and the mood strikes me sooner. ;)

Chris, I am with you about a cover only reflecting the money put in it by a publisher or author. Especially in this era of self-published authors, many of whom don't have tons of money and are barely making ends meet, judging the quality of a book (especially a self-published one) by its cover strikes me as rather snobbish. Many 'bestsellers' had nice professionnal covers but read like cr.. in my opinion (Fifty Shades of Grey comes to mind). If you are really serious about finding good books to read, at least take the time to read the synopsis or to leaf through it. If you are really in such a hurry, then maybe that day is not the best one to hunt for a good book. Personnally, the only reason I examine a cover is to find out what genre the book is and if it is by an author I know and like.

@Michel thank you so much for putting that into words!

Covers are important, they are judgment calls: not the only indicator of what is inside, but the most visible one.

A book cover is an advertisement. Every part of a book cover has its counterpart in a TV ad, as I shall now demonstrate (using fictitious examples to avoid legal action):

Author's name (Z.Z.Snark) = Company name (Old McDonald's Pharm Inc)
[Message: you know this name, and you trust it]

Title ('The Dragons of Newark') = Product name (UrgentGo laxative tablets)
[Message: this product sounds like just the thing you've been looking for]

Blurb ('Fire from the sky! Mythical beasts terrorise an ordinary New Jersey township…') = voiceover ('do you sit there for hours with nothing happening? Don’t give up, help is at hand…')
[Message: this is what this product gives you]

Cover picture (a fiery dragon hovering over an ordinary suburb, the flames from its mouth incinerating several buildings) = moving visuals (a man looking strained and unhappy, then a man sighing with relief)
[Message: this is the experience you will get from this product]

Reviews ('The best novel about mythical beasts terrorising an American city since E.J.Podworthy's 'The Wyverns of Boston'…) = testimonials ('97% of 84 people said they felt quite a lot better')
[Message: people, especially people like you, think this product is really good]

The clever thing about a book cover is that, because it's stuck to the book, it appears at first glance to be part of the book. But of course it isn't – the book proper is only what's inside the cover. When you buy a book, you’re also buying an advert for the book that's glued to the book. I think it's worth remembering that.

Chris wrote: "A book cover is an advertisement. Every part of a book cover has its counterpart in a TV ad, as I shall now demonstrate (using fictitious examples to avoid legal action):

Author's name (Z.Z.Snark)..."

I agree in part. From that perspective it is an advert stuck on the front of the book. But I don't think I have ever thought of it in those terms, except when I see an explicit advert for a book on the TV or on a poster. For me it is the difference between "Buy Me" and "I Am Interesting". The cover art, if it works for me, is part of the book. A book as a desirable object?

The point about genres is well taken. Certainly, in my teens, I gravitated to the sci-fi and fantasy titles (Michael Moorcock, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Stephen R. Donaldson, and so on, and so forth). I had already been influenced in that regard, so perhaps conditioning had set in and I was alert for good fantasy art. (As a side note Isaac Asimov ALWAYS had a cover by Chris Foss. If it wasn't Chris Foss then it wasn't Asimov. I felt a bit let down when The Rest of the Robots appeared. It wasn't Chris Foss! Heresy!)

It is interesting how we get influenced at an early age, though. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were already in the house. (Pauline Baynes, another artist who pulls you in). There was also Alan Garner, Michael Moorcock (I had older brothers who like him) and H. G. Wells (the complete short stories - my father liked him). But I discovered H P Lovecraft on my own, along with Clive Barker. And both of them attracted me with their cover art. (Clive Barker's Books of Blood (vols 1 to 6) were, I believe, his own design. Certainly it was his own artwork that was used. Very striking, and harks back to what I was saying earlier. Since it was Barkers 'vision', so to speak, it was true to his books.)

I grew up in a house full of old books. Sometimes I'd scrounge around on the shelves for anything interesting to read, and oftentimes the uglier books that I'd passed up at first because they didn't look interesting turned out to be my favorites. Then when I started buying books for myself, I always got the cheapest I could get because it was all I could afford, so my collection was (and is) a mismatched, ratty, very used-looking bunch of books. One of my favorite series, the chronicles of Prydain, had some of the ugliest covers I'd ever seen. Of course I love nice covers, but just because they're fun to look at, not because they mean the book is fun to read.
So, from a writer's perspective, obviously get the nicest-looking cover you can. People gravitate towards nice-looking things, and often pass up ugly ones.
But from a reader's perspective, a book's cover is something that we have to look past, because some of the nicest covers are on some of the worst books, and some of the best books have some of the most horrible covers.

Michel wrote: "...a cover only reflecting the money put in it by a publisher or author. Especially in this era of self-published authors, many of whom don't have tons of money and are barely making ends meet, judging the quality of a book (especially a self-published one) by its cover strikes me as rather snobbish..."

Would you eat at a new restaurant if their sign out front was handwritten scrawl on cardboard ? Or would you be more inclined to try out a new restaurant whose sign was flashy, very attractive, and professionally designed?

I think you're missing the point. We all know intellectually that book covers aren't an indication of writing quality. But the point of a book cover is to wave customers into the shop. If your shop, or book, looks sloppy, handmade, non-professional, then it simply won't draw that attention.

A bad cover basically says "I don't care much what it looks like." And while that may be a healthy perspective in the sense that "it's the story that counts," to the passing customer it shows a cavalier attitude toward your product. Apple didn't make it big based on the quality of their product alone. They made it big by focusing on design, appearance, and the perception of being "cool" while also delivering a quality product.

Buying is almost never an intellectual process. It's an emotional one. And a poorly designed book cover delivers a poor emotional experience. It simply gives the potential reader an excuse to pass it by.

Grace wrote: "I grew up in a house full of old books. Sometimes I'd scrounge around on the shelves for anything interesting to read, and oftentimes the uglier books that I'd passed up at first because they didn'..."

Same here. A house full of books, many of them old and not a little used.

The transposition of covers and quality is interesting. I have seen it too. A book you know to be amazing is suddenly published with an appalling cover. You wonder what is going through the publishers mind, and it usually is a mass-marketed paperback that is the culprit. Somebody trying to boost sales on the cheap? I have often pondered what really lies at the back of such antics.

Of course, there is also the excuse that there is no accounting for taste. Somebody may have actually liked the result!

Micah wrote: "Buying is almost never an intellectual process. It's an emotional one. And a poorly designed book cover delivers a poor emotional experience. It simply gives the potential reader an excuse to pass it by."

It is not just the design, I think. It is the art. If there is something in the image, a moment captured, a fleeting glimpse, that elusive sense of captured soul, I think that is the battle all but won. Design sometimes gives itself away, becomes too much. Sometimes the artifice is all too obvious, and the man behind the curtain is revealed. Then, I think, the intent fails.

Simon wrote: "It is not just the design, I think. It is the art. If there is something in the image, a moment captured, a fleeting glimpse, that elusive sense of captured soul, I think that is the battle all but won. Design sometimes gives itself away, becomes too much. Sometimes the artifice is all too obvious, and the man behind the curtain is revealed. Then, I think, the intent fails..."

All of that IS the design. Design is the totality of putting the whole thing together: right image, right fonts, right text placement. If it's all too obvious ... bad design.

And, yes, there is a huge subjective part to it. Some of the covers linked in this very article as good I don't particularly find effective. But that doesn't mean it's not worth putting in an effort!

Micah wrote: " Some of the covers linked in this very article as good I don't particularly find effective."

Just out of curiosity, but which ones, and why?

Micah wrote: Buying is almost never an intellectual process. It's an emotional one.

No, I really can’t agree with this. When you buy a new book by an author you have enjoyed in the past, that is a thoroughly intellectual (because thoroughly rational) process. When you choose to read a book in a genre you have enjoyed in the past rather than a genre you've never tried, that also is an intellectual (because rational) process. When you choose a book because it has had good reviews from people whose tastes you have previously found to be similar to your own, that too is an intellectual (because rational) process. In all these cases, your decision is a logical one, backed up by sound intellectual reasoning.

If you allow yourself to buy a book solely because you've fallen in love with the picture on the cover, then because the picture on the cover is at that stage no more than an advertisement, you are indeed making an emotional rather than an intellectual decision; but although the picture on the cover may exert some influence over the buying decision, it seems to me that it really can't be decisive for most book-buyers, because if it were, there would be no such thing as reader loyalty to particular genres and (especially) authors, which clearly there is.

I think most book buying is primarily an intellectual process, and only to a lesser extent an emotional one. And I think the more one reflects on the fact that the cover of a book is not part of the book proper, but is actually a tool used by publishers to attempt to subvert that intellectual process, the better you are able to resist the mistakes that inevitably happen when you allow the emotional appeal of a cover to make your buying decision.

Chris wrote: "Micah wrote: Buying is almost never an intellectual process. It's an emotional one.

No, I really can’t agree with this. When you buy a new book by an author you have enjoyed in the past, that is a..."

I agree with this statement.

But... I'm an impulse buyer and an intellectual one.

The series I adore I will buy it with a nice cover. even if the paperback one sucked. But because I want to enjoy them for the years to come I will look for a nice cover. So rational.

But sometimes I get suckered in to buying a book just because I liked the cover. And sometimes I won't buy a book because the cover doesn't relate to the story (Asian person in the story, Caucasian person on the cover). Totally an emotional decision.

But when browsing in a library I mostly won't look at covers at all but at titles... So yeah I'm both.
Sometimes it matters and sometimes I just don't care...

@Chris interesting reasoning. I really agree with your conclusions, but the devil's advocate in me can't help but point out that oftentimes, our very affection for cold rationality is an emotional, or at least an aesthetic, decision. Also if someone's main reason for buying a book is to have something pretty on their shelf, or to give it as a gift, a nice-looking cover would be a reasonable consideration.

Chris wrote: "When you buy a new book by an author you have enjoyed in the past, that is a thoroughly intellectual (because thoroughly rational) process. When you choose to read a book in a genre you have enjoyed in the past rather than a genre you've never tried, that also is an intellectual (because rational) process..."

Ah! But are these actually intellectual/rational purchases?

For example, I like Neal Stephenson's writing. So I bought several of his Baroque Cycle books without knowing anything much about them. Without having sampled them. Why? Because Stephenson's writing prior to those books stimulated me. I had an emotional connection to him and his writing.

The Baroque Cycle, however, turned out to be a meandering, annoying mess that I gave up on. And since then, my emotional disappointment has kept me away from his writing.

];P Devil's advocate here.

Same with genres. Some genres simply hit the right buttons with you and therefore you're more likely to buy on impulse in those genres.

It's not really rational. I read SF almost exclusively. I'm sure there are tons of non-SF books that I'd really like. But I don't look for them because I'm emotionally tied to SF. That's not really logical. But that's the case.

And anyway, my comments that you're taking difference to (which is fine) were actually only referring to buying books by people you don't really know. I'll always but a (non-fantasy) Greg Bear book, no matter what the cover looks like. Same with a lot of "known quantity" authors.

Chris wrote: "If you allow yourself to buy a book solely because you've fallen in love with the picture on the cover..."

Sorry, but my comments in this thread clearly show that's not what I said or meant. I don't think covers sell books. They just wave the customer into your shop.

The cover is the first attractor if you don't know the author. Cover leads to blurb, blurb leads to sampling the writing, sampling the writing leads to (possibly) a quick look at the reviews...THEN I decide to buy or not.

I've never ever bought a book on cover alone. Anyone who does is a chump.

I try not to be affected by covers but I certainly have skipped a book on the shelf because of a terrible cover. Since I started using an ereader my book reading has become much more diverse because rarely if ever am I considering the cover.

Does anybody think that covers are less important in the age of epubs and Kindle? I don't think I even look at the cover photo when I read an ebook.

Bruce wrote: "Does anybody think that covers are less important in the age of epubs and Kindle? I don't think I even look at the cover photo when I read an ebook."

I'm a bit like that myself, but I am attracted to a nice cover on a paper book. Having said that, I mostly buy ebooks now, unless I'm looking for an author's autograph, or I can't get something I want any other way.

Bruce wrote: "Does anybody think that covers are less important in the age of epubs and Kindle? I don't think I even look at the cover photo when I read an ebook."

No. If anything they're even more important during the buying phase because you can't physically interact with ebooks. The only thing you have right off the bat is the cover and maybe a few sentences about the book. Most of the time, though, you'll see books in a list where only the cover, the title/author, and the price are indicated.

After purchase of the eBook the covers are irrelevant.

Christopher wrote: "...I certainly have skipped a book on the shelf because of a terrible cover..."

^^ That.

The book cover is a first impression...I won't even bother if love hasn't been put into it. That being said, if I'm curious, I'll read a sample and if it's good I'll bite.
I'm more likely to check out a book based on its cover...

Micah, re your experience with Neal Stephenson - evidently it went like this:
1) you had a positive emotional response to his earlier books
2) you then reasoned as follows:
- I had a positive response to his earlier books
- therefore I am likely to have a positive response to his later books
3) based on this reasoning, you bought the Baroque Cycle
4) you then discovered that your reasoning had been flawed because you lacked an essential piece of data, viz. that the Baroque Cycle lacked the features of the older books to which you had responded positively.

Steps 2 and 3, which constitute the buying process, were intellectual, not emotional. (In fact step 2 is an example of what philosophers call 'inductive reasoning'.) The emotional stuff didn't really form part of your decision-making process, it simply provided the data feeding into the intellectual process.

(Note to everyone else: please forgive me if you find this kind of arguing tedious. I have a philosophy degree, and this is how I argue. I'm aware that it annoys some people. If I bore you, skip my comments and go onto something you find more interesting.)

As regards your message 34, mea culpa - I'll try to do better. Perhaps I can modify my remark as follows:

To the extent that your decision to buy a book is based on the picture on the cover, you are making an emotional rather than an intellectual decision.

On a more personal note, a few years ago I bought an SF book mainly because of one sentence on the back cover which told me something about the story that sounded quite exciting. When I read the book, I discovered that what the sentence had said wasn't actually true. I was pretty annoyed. This kind of thing does tend to make one very suspicious of book covers.

No.

Don't get me wrong, I do like a nice cover (I think the fourth Death Gate Cycle book has a dragon's head and neck rising from a sea of lava, which is cool) but it doesn't affect my design to buy or not. I do think it influences a lot of people, though, even if it's just the initial bait that makes them find out a bit more.

Chris wrote: "Micah, re your experience with Neal Stephenson - evidently it went like this:
1) you had a positive emotional response to his earlier books
2) you then reasoned as follows:
- I had a positive resp..."

That is how I felt about Stephenson, all his later and shorter works, even his non science fiction books are all better than his longer works, which in my opinion are all unreadable. But I don't think many have read his older and shorter work other than his two cyberpunk, if they at least they did that. This might be because those people hate reading older books and combine that with the few books he wrote that isn't science fiction really don't attract them, it makes a winning formula to not read any of them at all.
That is part of the reason I think many readers love Stephenson because all they know him is from his big brick books, not his short and quick pace books, which in my opinion are way better.

There are three books I can think of off hand where I was just randomly browsing in a store and the cover caught my eye and is what brought me to a series:

Sabriel:
Tithe:
Faerie Wars:

I have a thing for butterflies... and faeries... so those were kinda easy picks for me. I couldn't tell you what drew me to the Sabriel cover - probably just the vivid blue of her coat (it's more vivid in person) and the shadow coming up behind her.

I'm sure there are more, though I don't randomly browse nearly as much as I used to in the days before the internet, amazon and goodreads.

I have been known to go out of my way, when buying a book, to look for certain covers over others. Like sometimes I prefer the UK edition of a book and will pay a little extra to get it shipped from there. I buy books so rarely anymore, though, that's it's not often an onerous cost.

I just remember another where the cover caught my eye randomly at the store:



Black and purple is my favorite color combination, and I love mazes and swirly things... so this cover was sort of made for me.

To the best of my awareness, a cover has little to no impact on my decision to buy a book. These days, books usually end up on my to-read list either because it’s a familiar author whose work I want to read more of, or because I’ve seen discussions/reviews on sites like this one that made the book seem appealing to me. I never just randomly browse anymore, because I already have plenty of books I want to read.

Several years back, when I did randomly browse titles in a bookstore or a library, the first draw for me was the thickness of the book. I gravitated toward the thickest books on the shelves and read the synopses for them first. After that, I guess I went more by title as far as deciding whether or not to pick a book up and read more about it. If a book was facing cover-out, the cover may have played some role in my decision to pick it up, but most books faced spine-out in my experience. So the cover rarely affected my decision about whether or not to pick a book up and, once a book was in my hands, I would never have put it back on the shelf without reading the synopsis just because I didn’t like the cover.

I don’t consider myself a very visual person, though. I can of course form a general opinion about whether or not I like a picture, but pictures just don’t have much to say to me and they rarely evoke strong feelings. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but I personally would rather have the words.

Yes. And recently, not only attractive graphics, but the cover's texture. I 've noticed trade paperbacks with covers that are different from the traditional laminated plastic. One cover type has a waxy texture. Another type has a grainy or scratchy texture. Both cover types are very unpleasant to touch.

I still buy paper books because I find them more relaxing to the eyes and I like the tactile experience of holding a book. But these waxy and scratchy covers put me off. In fact, I refused to buy a couple books at the store yesterday because I knew I wouldn't like holding them as I read. I'm going to try to find them in hardcover at the public library.

Has anybody else had this experience? Your opinion?

I'm not crazy about the trade paperbacks that have the more porous, grainy texture. I think they'll hold up really well but I don't particularly want to hold one while I read it. Especially if I'm expected to pay $16 for it.

a good cover will get me to pick up a book and look at it. Beyond that it takes a good cover blurb, or a good first chapter, to ensure I buy the book.

the only time a cover might be a deciding factor is with a graphic novel. Even though the cover is quite often done by a different artist than the interior it can still inspire me to buy the book.

CS wrote: "Yes. And recently, not only attractive graphics, but the cover's texture. I 've noticed trade paperbacks with covers that are different from the traditional laminated plastic."

I hadn't thought about this before, but I agree. Matt finishes seem to be the culprits here, but not always. A textured 'fabric' finish is fine, but as you said, 'waxy' or 'scratchy' just do not work. I also used to get annoyed by dust jackets on hardbacks, and would take them off. (But you could not do that with library books as they used to put a plastic cover on that was really annoying, especially in hot weather!)

The only way an unpleasantly textured cover works is if the book is a grimoire, then it is absolutely essential!