The saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover” has been around forever, but let’s be honest: do we really stick to it when choosing our next read? I’ve certainly been swayed by beautiful covers and overlooked some great reads with unimpressive ones. What’s your take on this? Have you ever let a book’s cover dictate your reading choices, and what memorable surprises have you found when you decided to look beyond it?
by MadMaxine666
50 Comments
Reminds me of a fragment in Robert Eaglestone’s *Contemporary Fiction: A Very Short Introduction,* when discussing the concept of genre:
>At first, genre, which basically just means ‘type’, looks relatively innocuous. In the case of contemporary fiction, it looks as if it’s simply the ‘pigeonhole’ into which different sorts of novels are placed: science fiction, ‘chicklit’, historical fiction, thrillers, and so on. Bookshops and libraries need to know which shelves to place books on; book jacket designers need to know what to put on the cover **(you can always judge a contemporary novel book by its cover: indeed, there is huge sub-industry just devoted to making this possible)**; teachers need to know where books go. It’s almost as if everyone involved in the strange institution is keen to fit books into neat categories.
Books are always written with an audience in mind, publishers pick up books based on that and create covers that will attract this audience. For most people it should be easy to see what kind of content a book has based on its cover. There are exceptions, like always, but it would be extremely rare that I would pick a YA book by mistake, thinking by the cover it was actual literature.
I suppose it’s a matter of how we define “judge”. I don’t think I typically “judge” a book by the cover. I don’t think I’ve ever said to myself, “This book gets an automatic 1-star rating because the cover is ugly, so I’m not gonna read it”.
That said, I *have* been enticed to look into a book because of an eye-catching cover. Catchy and/or pithy titles can entice me, too.
Zero impact. Cover doesn’t matter to me. When I see a cover I dont understand it, once I read the book I do, and it makes sense most of the time after reading it.
Books that don’t have any images in the cover do attract my atention. The aniversary edition of “Rayuela” was black on white, and it instantly caught my eye. Perhaps we are bombarded by media so much that simplicity has become the exception.
Nope. I despise all marketing. First and last sentence are my go-to evaluation method. If they catch me, the book is mine.
No, because I get my recommendations from ChatGPT. It’s pretty awesome. If you feed it 10-20 of your favorite books you’ll get a rock solid list.
Yes. It’s very likely that I’ll ignore any book that has even a single person on the cover.
Not sure if my case really fits this discussion, but for very long time I was putting of buying “Roadside Picnic” by Strugatsky brothers, because every edition I find has cover based on Stalker game series.
Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Stalker, but for some reason it infuriates me to see it on cover of a book that games used as loose inspiration.
After about 10 years I gave up on finding nice looking standalone and simply bought compilation of their novels. More fun reading for me and at least the cover looks nice.
I do but I still read the synopsis before making a final decision.
Sometimes they catch my eye – it’s how I discovered the greatness of Tim Dorsey!
Absolutely. It’s hard because i love scifi and scifi covers are often ridiculous looking 😂 my judging list goes : title, cover, blurb, names of characters. I’m willing to overlook a less than stellar cover or title if the other factors are amazing despite this ranking.
Even though we all know this judgement, we can’t avoid it. Book cover catches the eyes in first time. It is some kind of first impression.
No. But sometimes the title. Had to read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.
Of course. A poorly-made cover is a reflection of the book inside. If I see a shit cover–especially an indie cover–I’m going to assume that if the author/publisher didn’t care enough to put out a quality cover, they probably didn’t care enough about having an edited book or a tight story. No thanks.
Amazon Prime had a free science fiction book with a shapely & impressively endowed black leather-clad woman on the cover. I probably scrolled past it 20 times looking for free stuff and it kept catching my eye. Since it was free, I clicked on it and pushed it to my Kindle. A year or two later with that book cover taunting me every time I scrolled through the “Uncollected” folder, I decided to read it. It was entertaining fluff so I pulled down the sequel and put myself on the author’s mailing list.
For the record, “Expelled”, first book in the Interplanetary Spy for Hire series by Ell Leigh Clarke. “Exposed” is the sequel. There is no third in the series. I was channeling my inner 15 year old boy.
“All books are judged by their covers until they are read.” -Agatha Swanburne
Yes. I’m not a big fantasy (especially high fantasy) reader or a big dark romance reader. However, I do own a bunch of books in those genres because of the cover art.
The cover is very important for catching my eye. It’s not the reason I ultimately read or “judge” a book. But it is probably why I looked at it in the first place.
Oh yeah all the time
I don’t really care for the cover of the book. If the description is to my liking, I’m sold.
I choose almost all the books I read based on the cover. If the cover grabs my attention I’ll read the back and decide if I want to buy it but there have been plenty of times where I’ve bought a book based on the cover art and title alone. IMO good cover art is one of the most important aspects of a book, I think its a great way to show the tone or aesthetic that you should be picturing while reading. I’m certain there are loads of great books I’ve passed on because of bad/lame cover art but it doesn’t bother me.
I almost never care about the cover story me way or the other. There *have* been a few truly heinous covers where I’ve bought a different edition; but the cover really has no bearing on writing, grammar, concept, plot, etc., so in the end it’s not a functional way to identify good books. It can be helpful in identifying genre if you’re looking at thumbnails online, but that’s about it.
I research a ton before I buy or read books. If I’m in person I’m drawn more to words than pictures and more likely to turn something down or pull it off a shelf based on the title. But it will be the back of the book, inside blurb, and reading bits of the book that make my final decision, never the cover.
I am drawn to books by cover or title equally, but I always read the first few sentences before buying. (Unless it’s the next in a series I already enjoy.) So covers are a starting point that can lure me in but aren’t the final selling point. I will always open them up in person or find an excerpt online before a book purchase.
Don’t choose a book by its cover works better for most things than books. I think you can get a pretty good idea about the vibe of the book from the cover. I’ve actually gotten books I didn’t know anything about just because I liked the cover.
Yes. The cover can tell what kind of book it is.
I had the exact same post about a week ago and it was deleted by the mods claiming it was more suitable for the “Tuesday general questions thread”.
Anyway, I also often judge books by their covers. If the cover won’t catch my eye I probably won’t get a chance to check the book’s back to see what it’s about.
The cover is what gets my attention but I don’t buy a book just because of the cover. If the cover is interesting I’ll check it out and read the summary etc. and then I’ll buy the book.
100% yes
I see the cover, I read the title, and decide if it seems worth reading the synopsis.
The cover is the first thing I see and makes or breaks whether I’m going to pick it up. I know this has caused me to miss out on great books but I have to weed out books somehow or I’m going to be reading synopses for years trying to find something.
Well yeah, everyone has those covers that you know it’s just going to be a bad book. If the cover is bad, I’ll look at the title but if it doesn’t look particularly interesting I won’t waste my time. Unless it’s part of a series I like or author, or it’s been recommended I won’t look. I have to many books to read already to take a chance on something that doesn’t look interesting.
only when it’s a metaphor for something else
No but I do judge it by its first paragraph
It’s a metaphor for everything but books.
Someone went to art school for that. It is definitely be a factor for me.
If a fiction book has a real person on its cover, I probably won’t read it
I will not let disliking a cover stop me from reading a book.
But I will sometimes pick up a book for the sole reason of liking a cover.
No. I choose books based on reviews and recommendations. I can’t remember the last book I read where I saw it in-hand before I got it.
Covers are marketing, and they are often effective. A good publisher will be able to express a mood with the cover of the book. As in all marketing there are trends and publishers will change covers with the trends.
I love historical fiction and I’ve noticed so many of the books I’ve enjoyed have a scene with a woman or women on a street shown from the back. So, when I see a similar cover, it catches my eye, then I look to see if it is historical fiction and I’m far more likely to pick it up.
Romance on the other hand is not something that I usually read, so I tend to barely even notice books with a woman and a man on the front, especially is they are in a position that emotes passion.
Sort of. I don’t pick or reject a book based on its cover, but I decide whether to read the back cover or the reviews based on the cover.
You kind of have to. There are just too many books out there. And it isn’t as though covers don’t tell you anything. Book covers are often made to look like book covers that were successful in other, similar books. I can screen out hundreds of books about a recently divorced/widowed woman moving to a small town and finding love with someone unexpected just by screening the cover.
> The saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover” has been around forever, but let’s be honest: do we really stick to it when choosing our next read?
That old saying is really NOT about books. There’s nothing negative about judging a book by its cover and no one cares if you do it.
In a bookstore, some covers may keep me away, but I don’t even check the covers of majority of the books I buy or order.
I do, in many cases it does kinda represent the style/feel of the book. I mean logically, that’s what it’s for
If I’m recommended by someone close, I’d read it anyways
I don’t actually decide to read a book based on its cover, but if I’m browsing in a bookstore, I’m more likely to pull a book off of the shelf and look at it closely if I recognize the author or if it has an interesting cover.
I hate movie tie-in covers. They ruin the imagination and force the reader to picture characters how the movie portrays them from the cover, especially so if it’s a famous actor.
No, but I do judge book cover designers and there are a lot of duds in that department.
For me, it applies when browsing a bookstore and picking books to read the back of and then maybe buy.
Once I own it, it no longer applies.
I don’t judge a book as definitively good or bad based on the cover, but I can certainly judge them as more or less intriguing to me. (Do they tell me something about the story? Is there an image to give a sense of setting or theme? etc.)
My potentially hot take, however, is from a marketing perspective: I’m skeptical if the publisher wasn’t even willing to put any effort in on the most basic marketing possible to sell the book (i.e., the cover). If they didn’t believe in it, there’s likely a reason. Never a guarantee, and there’s always a high chance I have different taste than that book’s editor, but if I’m picking between the Book of the Boring Cover vs one that is eye-catching, draws me into the world and story already, etc., I’m taking the latter every time.
And don’t even get me STARTED on books that waste every inch of the cover on quotes praising the book and an author biography instead of a summary letting me know what the book’s about. Love the quotes and bio, but why are they soooo desperate I know people like the book but won’t tell me what it’s about??
absolutely! i got an order from booktopia today (i went ham on the $5 below section) and i brought a few purely because i liked the covers. i don’t intend of reading them, i just like the cover. i’ll also do the same in libraries. if the cover looks cool i’ll have a look and see if i’ll like the plot. i love judging books by covers
I think the cover says a lot about the book. Good cover tells me that it has been published by some bigger publisher, which means it is selected from thousands of submissions. Also, if you put time on the cover, it means you have spent time in the book.
Edit: I mean good cover as in something that is not just a title on white or something made with stock images or some of that sort.
I don’t mean to say that smaller or individual publishers are bad or all big publishers are good. But big publishers have more likely quality books.
So, yes. It is the cover that draws me in but if someone suggested me a book that didn’t have good cover or I got interested by it any other way, I would read it.
If I’m just at a book shop browsing the shelves then I am absolutely influenced by the cover. There are too many books to read a synopsis of them all, so something about the cover or the title (and, really, judging by the title is no better than judging by the cover) has to grab my attention to prompt me to then read the synopsis, flip through a few pages, and decide if it’s the sort of book I might like. However, being *influenced* by the cover is *not* the same as *judging* the book by its cover.
That said, I’m almost never just browsing books with no idea of what to get. I tend to be looking for specific books or authors that I already know I want.
I always liked comedian Jim Nortons take on this quote, he says “yes you can, that’s why books HAVE covers”
I almost didn’t read my favorite trilogy The Winners Curse because of the book cover having a person on it 🙁