I fall in some vague middle ground regarding covers. Except for the very rare (and seemingly getting rarer) very special ones that you feel like mounting a wall, the cover becomes almost completely irrelevant after I've read a book. With paper books it's just something to hang on to, with ebooks it's just an icon to click on.
For selecting books to buy the cover may have some influence, although most often (for me) it's a negative one rather than a positive. Some covers have a "yuk" factor that just turns me away. But it's not usually a big thing for me, more often than not I'm looking at a book because of what I've heard about it elsewhere (such as here), and so I'm going to look beyond the cover anyway.
As an author still trying to gain an audience, my own reading/buying habits appall me. How is a new author ever to get noticed if everyone selects books the same way I do? Thankfully there are some readers out there that take bigger risks, so I live in hope that eventually that will grow into the sort of word of mouth that attracts readers like me.
