11-30-2010, 09:47 AM | #16 |
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Important, but not a deal breaker
Cover Art enhances the shopping and selection process, but I would buy or read a book without it (and have). But all other things being equal, I would buy a book with cover art over one without.
It does enhance the overall 'book' experience for me. I feel the same way about cover art for music records only more so. CDs weren't too awful re, cover art but the whole download experience has weakened the overall music experience for me. Having been born during the age of dinosaurs, I can remember having cranked up the volume on my LP, listening to too loud music on my heavy (HEAVY!) headphones and getting lost in the combination of the music and the cover art while I listened to "The Doors". "Riders on the Stor-orm!" Last edited by GlenBarrington; 11-30-2010 at 09:55 AM. |
11-30-2010, 10:05 AM | #17 |
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Cover art is very important to me also. I absolutely hate it if one book in a series has an odd cover and doesn't match the others. I have never made my own covers (yet) but I do take the time to search the internet for a more appropriate cover for the book. Actually to be honest cover art has played a part in my choice of readers. I have the sony 505 which I bought when I first discovered ebooks and ereaders and I love it but I have always been bothered by the fact that my books cover art was not displayed to my satisfaction. Then I considered buying a nook because I was drawn to the little color screen that showed you the cover of your books, that was until I learned that it didn't display side loaded books in the same way. Now I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my ipad which will display my books cover art the way I want them displayed.(Yes I know that cover art is not the most logical way to choose an ebook reader but thats just me).
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11-30-2010, 10:09 AM | #18 |
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Cover art is not very important to me. I have picked up a book because I liked the cover art--usually understated, rather than loud, busy, and in-your-face. I don't think I've ever bought a book simply because I liked the cover, or refused to buy one simply because I didn't like the cover. When I was in my teens, I used to make a point of buying the movie tie-in books, but that was because I was more into movies then than into books.
As I get older, I care less and less about covers. Give me a plain text document and I'll enjoy it just fine. |
11-30-2010, 10:19 AM | #19 |
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A cover can attract me when I am browsing Amazons website looking for a good book. I end up buying a book based on the summary and not the cover.
Once I have purchased a book the cover art is not important to me. I have no problem not being able to browse by cover on my Kindle. |
11-30-2010, 11:04 AM | #20 |
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I tend to want the cover art on my eBook to match the cover art of whichever edition of the paperback I first read the book. So I often swap out the eBook's existing cover art for the version I want.
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11-30-2010, 11:20 AM | #21 |
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In a print book: first impressions (regardless of their accuracy) are the most lasting and the first impression you get of a book is its cover.
In an ebook: it shows attention to detail (and comes back to first impressions). If the creator/compiler/converter cared enough to add a proper/correct cover, then they're more likely to have cared enough to proofread and correct scanning errors. I've come across too many cases personally where a MSWord-style cover and a lazy publisher OCRing a scanned print have gone hand in hand. |
11-30-2010, 08:25 PM | #22 |
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I have spent UNTOLD hours searching for just the right cover for my books. I love flipping through calibre and seeing all the pretty covers.
Almost as good as looking at my wall to wall bookshelves |
11-30-2010, 09:42 PM | #23 |
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well, since I remember times when (in Poland) books were offered in as "series" in the way "take out and refold" pages from the sunday paper - nope i don't mind covers really they are just a visual hint, not more
i.e. I d expect celtic knot-like motives on an irish legend omnibus, and similar usage for connotative elements in other cases but I dont mind how the most cover artist think the protagonists may look (because they often enough present me something what only shows they have never read the pieces of text informing about that) |
11-30-2010, 10:00 PM | #24 |
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The cover art matters not one bit to me. It's all about the story inside!
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11-30-2010, 10:05 PM | #25 |
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On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being most important, I would give cover art a 1.
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11-30-2010, 10:47 PM | #26 |
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I guess I'm in the minority here, but since I use Calibre extensively and have a nook I am very anal about having the highest quality, best looking cover art I can find. Since I have a softrooted nook, all of my sideloaded books both display their cover art while I read that book and also in the "coverflow" browsing feature the nook has. I'd venture to say that the ability to see a color image of the cover art of a book while I'm reading it was one of the main two reasons I chose the nook.
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12-01-2010, 12:44 AM | #27 |
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Honestly, the only cover art I ever notice is in the avatars of people on this board. I don't pay much attention to it otherwise. That being said, I really dislike the "stock" covers on ebooks that are just brown with the title or whatnot. I don't really care what the cover art looks like on my ebook, but I like the covers to be varied and not generic covers.
I have noticed some great-looking covers as avatars, however. |
12-01-2010, 09:08 AM | #28 |
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Not having cover art is not a deal breaker for me; but I do like the art work and if it's available, i'm a happy lad.
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12-01-2010, 02:58 PM | #29 |
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I guess I'm somewhere in the middle. I like my eyecandy, I do. And if a cover that calibre finds on it's metadata source is hideous, and I *know* there's a better one out there, I'll usually go track it down and replace the hideous one. Or if a reissued (in ebook) series comes out with different/worse covers. The reissues of the Aaron Elkins Gideon Oliver series come to mind. I recently got all these, and when putting them into calibre, the reissues all have basically the same cover. It's not horrid, but it's not the ones I remember seeing on the physical books when I had them. So, I let calibre do it's metadata search and replaced the new ones with the older ones that I remembered.
That being said though - I don't *think* I'm anal about it. If I can't find the more appealing (to me) cover, I'll usually just let it go and forget about it. |
12-01-2010, 03:22 PM | #30 |
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In browsing for pbooks, it was generally not the cover art when browsing shelves for books but the blurbs or synopses on the back cover that interested me. Those help reveal the contents and opinions/reviews. The art was of little consequence.
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