You can't judge a book by its cover, but do you?

[haertig]

I know I do. Once I know an author is one I like, the cover doesn't matter so much. But when choosing a new author? The book cover is what initially draws me to them (second only to word of mouth recommendations). I probably miss many good authors because of what I consider their choice of unappealing book covers.

I would say that in general, Fantasy authors seem to have the best covers, especially for a series. Crime/Mystery authors tend to have the worst. But that may well be just the mix of authors I am familiar with. Then there are the Thriller authors, especially the ones on Kindle Unlimited, who are just infatuated with the cover of a single individual in silhouette looking away from you. That cover art has been so overdone.

Anyway, does any else admit to scrolling through book covers in Calibre looking for something that grabs your interest at the moment?

FWIW, of the covers in the image below, two say "Hmmm, this could be interesting", two say "Ugh, throw me back!" and two don't really say anything - they wouldn't draw me to the book that's for sure, but they wouldn't make me trash it either. Maybe all this is just my personal assumptions about what the content will be like, and not the actual artwork chosen for the cover. I don't know...

[Uncle Robin]

I have to admit that most of the mysteries I read have unremarkable covers. Ditto the romances. But on my StoryGraph TBR there is one book I got because of its cover - the combination of the cover image and the film reference in the title made me smile, and the synopsis reinforced that, even if reading it is going to take me FOREVER

[maddz]

What I find off-putting are urban fantasy side of paranormal romance covers - usually involving one or more of the following:

* An over-muscled topless man looking like his trousers are about to slide off (or his belt needs doing up)
* A skinny woman in a tank top and/or bum-freezer leather jacket that looks like she's just stepped out of a high-end beauty parlour even if she has a background that looks like the last stages of urban decay before gentrification sets in
* Tattoos on anyone
* Honking big weapon carried by a skinny woman (who looks like she's not strong enough to lift it let alone carry it around all day)
* 'Greyed-out' animals as an aura round one of the figures

All are romance cover art tropes and have been done to death.

Now I like urban fantasy, I avoid paranormal romance. The bleed-through into urban fantasy cover art is probably causing me to miss otherwise good titles - but then I have plenty to read in any case.

[JSWolf]

I do judge a book by it's cover. There are a lot of books out there and not enough time to read them all. So you have to have some way of choosing which ones to ignore. If the cover is lousy, I just ignore it.

Have a look here for some pretty awful covers.
https://lousybookcovers.com

Also, if you are going to be self-published, you need a good cover. Do not use a cover that looks like Photoshop threw up.

[issybird]

In the ebook era, covers don’t matter to me much. I’m generally searching on a title or author or subject, so I’ve already filtered, and the images are small. However, back in the pbook day, they did matter. When doing general browsing, especially at a new book display, being eye-catching made a difference. However,

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Also, if you are going to be self-published, you need a good cover. Do not use a cover that looks like Photoshop threw up.

I absolutely agree with this. I need to see the author cares and that she’s attentive to details. A poor or sloppy cover indicates typos and bad grammar as well as poor story-telling. And if that’s unfair, it’s the fault of the author who decided a bad cover was good enough.

[DiapDealer]

In my ebook buying process, the cover image is rarely large enough to be seen as anything other than an indistinct color smear. They're just tiny little thumbnails on a small screen that I don't go out of my way to zoom in on. Cover schmover. *shrug*

[Pulpmeister]

I know at least once I did just that.

For years I'd seen Dick Francis paperbacks, thought "horse-racing books, nah" until the Pan paperback of REFLEX passed before my eyes. The cover had a picture of a damaged camera. Now, I've been a photographer since I was about 11, so I snapped it up, and yes it was about horse racing, and also about photography; I've since read every one of Dick Francis's novels.

So yeah, covers work... sometimes. But now they're mostly stock photos, very repetitive and meaningless, and no longer catch my eye at all. How many thrillers have you seen with covers of a blurry silhouette of a man in a trench coat?

(I actually have an authentic trench coat! Bought on London back in the 90s. All I need is the snap brim hat with the pale band, and the straight-leg baggy pants, and I'm almost Sam Spade...)

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Pulpmeister

and the straight-leg baggy pants, and I'm almost Sam Spade...)

Or Donald Trump.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by haertig

I know I do. Once I know an author is one I like, the cover doesn't matter so much. But when choosing a new author? The book cover is what initially draws me to them (second only to word of mouth recommendations). I probably miss many good authors because of what I consider their choice of unappealing book covers.

I would say that in general, Fantasy authors seem to have the best covers, especially for a series. Crime/Mystery authors tend to have the worst. But that may well be just the mix of authors I am familiar with. Then there are the Thriller authors, especially the ones on Kindle Unlimited, who are just infatuated with the cover of a single individual in silhouette looking away from you. That cover art has been so overdone.

Anyway, does any else admit to scrolling through book covers in Calibre looking for something that grabs your interest at the moment?

FWIW, of the covers in the image below, two say "Hmmm, this could be interesting", two say "Ugh, throw me back!" and two don't really say anything - they wouldn't draw me to the book that's for sure, but they wouldn't make me trash it either. Maybe all this is just my personal assumptions about what the content will be like, and not the actual artwork chosen for the cover. I don't know...

Certainly, back in the days of going to book stores, the cover was the primary thing that attracted me to a book by an author I didn't know. It's the same thing when I try to scroll through the new books in an eBook store. Of course, word of mouth means that I might take a chance on a new author where the cover doesn't do much. A bad cover pretty much says amateur to me.

[Quoth]

Also Covers are less use than Blurbs. Blurbs are often bad. Sometimes have spoilers and sometimes you wonder did the Blurb writer read the book. Mind, I write terrible Blurbs, but I can't afford a Blurb writer. Also authors may write a great novel and be useless at a blurb or a synopsis (which SHOULD have spoilers!).

I find samples and "Look inside" better. I'd look inside in a bookshop.

[gmw]

Covers don't often attract me, although, as already noted by others above, they can serve as an instant turn off.

But I am a sucker for an interesting title. Two of the books in your thumbnails I recognised because I've looked at them for their title: "Standing in Another Man's Grave" and "This is How You Lose a Time War". (Okay, and in these cases because I know the authors, too.)

I found myself unable to walk past titles like: "The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heap", "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society", "Little Fires Everywhere", "The Octopus and I" or a recent pickup "Mrs Benson's Beetle". Some of these are books I may well have skimmed past in the normal run of things, most had fairly unremarkable covers, but the titles caught my eye enough to look further and decide I wanted to try them.

[DiapDealer]

My eyes are trained to slide right over titles that fit the "The <occupational title>'s <relative>" template.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by gmw

I found myself unable to walk past titles like: [...] "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society"

Don’t walk. Run. Like the wind. One of the absolute worst books I’ve read in my entire life.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

My eyes are trained to slide right over titles that fit the "The <occupational title>'s <relative>" template.

In the Patrick O’Brian canon, The Surgeon’s Mate was one of the best of them all. But I’m willing to say that’s an exception to an otherwise excellent rule of thumb.

[DiapDealer]

One could argue that "Mate" is not a relation (at least not a familial one). Unlike "The Actuary's Third Cousin (Twice Removed): A Novel"

[issybird]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

One could argue that "Mate" is not a relation (at least not a familial one). Unlike "The Actuary's Third Cousin (Twice Removed): A Novel"

It was a pun and a relation in one sense. But I agree that wouldn’t necessarily have been apparent to the casual looker.