The Book Blogger Hop was originally created by Jennifer @ Crazy-For-Books in March 2010 and ended on December 31, 2012. With Jennifer’s permission, Billy @ Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer relaunched the hop on February 15, 2013. Each week the hop will start on a Friday and end the following Thursday. There will be a weekly prompt featuring a book related question. The hop’s purpose is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, befriend other bloggers, and receive new followers to their own blog.
Question:
Does the cover of a book affect whether you are more willing to read it?
(submitted by Julie @ JadeSky)
Answer:
The cover of a book doesn’t impact my willingness to read it.
Now, it does impact a few subtle things:
- If I think the cover is 😍, I’ve noticed that I spend a little longer deciding if I want to read it. – give it a more thorough consideration, and
- If the cover doesn’t match common genre aspects, that has become a red flag for me. Like a cover of a thriller that looks like a romcom – kind of cartoonish and cute.
Tessa Talks Books 
I don’t read book whose cover I don’t like. But also – all that glitters is not gold – comes to mind too
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Definitely all that glitters is not gold. I’ve learned that the hard way.
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Is the impression we form of a person, by looking at his physical structure of him, truly reflect the character, potential, true nature of him ?
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Unfortunately no. We could be saved a lot of unnecessary emotional pain in life if we could tell everything about a person from their outside.
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Great answers. I hadn’t thought about when the cover doesn’t fit the genre and yes that does put me off too.
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I see that a lot in Indie books and have learned to proceed with caution because that has been consistent with the books I have found to be poorly edited. 😞
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Good covers almost always pull me in. It’s never the deciding factor on whether I read it or not, but because it’s the first thing I see, it leads me to learn more about the book and then choose whether or not to read it like you mentioned. 🙂
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It would be like not leaning down to smell a beautiful flower. 🌹
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The explosion of these illustrated covers for romance novels has gotten me into trouble. Authors I’d never read were convincing me to take a try just because the covers sometimes promised more than what I eventually discovered inside. I’ve calmed down, gotten back to my normal, more rational self but those covers still make me look twice.
Otherwise, covers don’t normally highly impact my reading decisions. But! Really bad ones for indie authors can often do them a disservice. If I don’t know the author and the cover is awful, I don’t even bother with the blurb which is a shame. I remember one indie author I came to enjoy who I was ready to dismiss (her cover was really, really bad) but she included an extract with her request. I ended up loving that book so if you’re an unknown, it’s wise to invest in a good cover. This particular author took heed and replaced the covers for the whole series.
Finally, authors who’ve made it to my auto read list can smack anything on the cover and it won’t deter me from reading their books😏
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I’m so glad she did. Indie authors really need to take special care with their covers. Oh, and I totally agree about auto buy authors. I don’t even really pay attention to their covers. Lol.
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I definitely think book covers can alter my decisions but usually I try to make my decision based on the blurb!
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The blurb or a sample can make or break my decision too.
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A stunning cover doesn’t compel me to read a book’s blurb, but a terrible cover does make me skip one. Not sure what that says about me as a consumer. I didn’t think I judged a book by its cover, but I guess I do. At least a little bit.
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That’s interesting. I think marketing people would scratch their heads at that. Lol.
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The second bullet point you mention is certainly an interesting one–another reason why I am a staunch believer in reading the blurb before deciding whether I want to read a book. If it’s a favorite author though, I don’t always do even that though. And while an attractive cover may make me pick up a book for a closer look, I don’t automatically dismiss all books whose covers I don’t especially like. I read a lot of e-books and it’s easy to ignore covers that way anyway. LOL I hope you have a great weekend!
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I agree about the ebooks making covers not as significant. I thought about that too when I was writing this up.
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The biggest impact covers have on me is in terms of the format in which I’ll buy the book. If I love the cover I often buy a paper copy, if not, I buy the ebook.
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That makes sense. The physical copies of books I buy are because of the cover 😍
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Good to know I’m not the only magpie here, Tessa 😄
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The blurb is what I use to decide on whether to read a book or not. However, if a cover looks dreadful or like it was made in Microsoft Paint, I’m not even going to read the blurb 🙈
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That definitely is off-putting, I agree.
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What you said about the cover not matching common genre aspects? Yes. I recently read a YA sci-fi novel that I would have skipped over because the cover screamed contemporary. It wasn’t until I read a review of the book that I knew the genre. Although a beautiful cover, it’s really not doing the book any favors. I’m afraid it’s attracting contemporary readers who don’t care about sci-fi, while all the target readers aren’t looking at it twice. Covers make a difference for me, but I’ll always read the blurb before making a decision.
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The blurb is definitely most important and, for me, sometimes the samples too.
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I am very much a cover lover. First I scan covers, if I see one that attracts my eye, I will read the blurb to see if this is a book that sounds like one I would like. I have been burned a few times, but the blurb didn’t truly describe the book. I have missed out on good books because the cover did not attract me at all. I have also grabbed a book based solely on the cover and it has been 50/50 as to whether the story measured up to the cover’s impression. I have to say that cartoonish covers do turn me off and so do over sexualized ones. I won’t even pick them up. Great question to make me reflect.
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