How do you decide whether you buy a book you see in a store/online or whether you move on to another? What is the most important factor you consider? Is it the cover? The blurb? The first few pages? The author? A combination? For me, it's definitely the first few pages, but the cover holds great weight too. Speaking of the cover, what elements and looks do you look for in a cover? Especially in the fantasy and horror genres. Do you like paintings on it or realistic pictures? Icons or scenes? What should the ideal appealing cover look like? What do you dislike on a cover?
by FewLife4809
3 Comments
It’s the cover for me, but I’m a graphic designer. So I’m thinking less whether I like its design or not, and more in terms of ‘What did this publishing house want to communicate from these specific strategic elements’, and that usually gives me a pretty good idea of the experience I’ll have before going into it. I then read the first couple pages and I’ve rarely been wrong.
I prefer books with a blurb on the back or inside the dust jacket. If a book has a positive review from an author I like, I’m more inclined to pick it up.
Personally, I don’t like realistic covers. I prefer illustrations. If it has those raised metallic accents, especially gold, I’m picking it up or at least touching it because despite millions of years of evolution my monkey brain still says, “Ooh, shiny!”
Usually if I buy a book it’s the following steps: someone recommended it to me and the synopsis sounded interesting OR I saw the cover and the synopsis sounded interesting.
There are a handful of authors I will blind buy there books because I feel I “owe” them royalties for reading their previous books at the library.
It’s hard to pick out what makes a “good” cover because everyone has different opinions. And honestly I’ve read books with ugly (to me) covers and bought and loved them so it didn’t matter in the end.