Quote:
Originally Posted by LovesMacs
The New York Times recently had an article about the competing book covers for "The Great Gatsby": the original blue cover with the disembodied face, and a movie tie-in edition featuring the cast from the new Baz Luhrmann film.
This got me thinking: do book covers make a difference, especially with e-books?
Despite the saying that "you can't judge a book by its cover", I find myself doing that. When I see a cover that looks as it took all of 30 seconds to design, it makes me wonder, perhaps unfairly, how carelessly produced the contents are if so little attention was given to the cover. And I wonder about that even in the era of e-books, when covers are less visible than before.
What are your thoughts on this? |
It is every bit as important as on music albums. maybe more so in ebooks than in a paper based Brick and mortar bookstore. Think about how we shop for books, both online and in person.
Online, when we browse we see the cover (or a grey rectangle) with the name and a bit of exposition about the book. That bit of catalogue that represents someone's book is displayed in a long list of books with maybe similar titles and maybe similarly named authors depending on how we sort.
A good cover can make a book stand out in a crowd of rectangles and tiny fonts.
But in a Brick and mortar store, the books are divided up by genre and placed side by side with often just the spines showing. I would suggest the title and spine decoration is more important in such a situation than the cover (though I wouldn't minimize cover art too much, once they pull a book, they need to be encouraged to open it.)
Good cover art is good business and more fun for browsing regardless of the situation.