Underestimating the Power of Book Covers

You. Yea, I’m talking to you! Book nerds! You do this. We all do this.

Judge a book by its cover. 

I cannot count how many times I’ve walked into my local library, my local bookstore, or my recommendation shelf on my Goodreads and make a judgment on a book based on its cover. We live in a world where, to an extent, appearance matters, or more specifically, first impressions.

As a book lover, I will come to appreciate the plot, the characters, the romance, the writing and everything you can think about the book itself. However, the covers are a whole other story. In my opinion, two things make up the first impression: the cover and the synopsis. Let’s focus on the covers for today.

If the cover catches my eye, I will read the synopsis. If I don’t like it, I won’t read the synopsis. Pretty simple. Book lovers praise beautiful covers. We value them as much as the story. Covers play such a huge part in advertising a novel that we don’t really value how much hard work goes into the colours, the font, and the cover image. Cover artists go through multiple drafts in order to find a cover that will hopefully attract readers to pick up the novel and read the story.

Sometimes, the cover doesn’t work out and some novels are left with a cover that is just:

And that just sucks because maybe the story is actually good, and we underestimate the quality of the novel because of the cover. So, we don’t consider it. We underestimate the power of book covers, and how much it affects the world of literary industry. We underestimate the long process and how much thought was put forth into the creation of the cover. And, we underestimate how often we judge a book by its cover.

For example, cover reveals, something that EVERY SINGLE fangirl anticipates when a new book comes out from a favourite author. Recently, we had cover reveals for Veronica Roth’s Carve the Mark, Sabaa Tahir’s A Torch Against The Night, (ohmygod, that cover kills me. I’m so freaking excited for that book to come out!!) and Sarah J. Maas’ Empire of Storms (Best cover from the series right now). And that’s only some!

What do all of these have in common?? A whole throng of people fawning over them, freaking out over them, and intensely anticipating the release. What we don’t realize is that this phase in marketing is crucial. If the cover is no good, publicity will fall. These authors are best-selling and have millions and millions of fans across the globe. There’s a whole buttload of pressure on how amazing these covers will be. These covers help authors get their book out there, but it’s also a great way for the community of fans to chat about the books and their passions. Covers are simultaneously a way to advertise the novel, the author, and a way to gather a group of people that adore the books.

Books covers are the be all and end all of the book world. No matter how hard I try, I will inevitable judge a book by its cover. But, just think for a second, how much stress and hard work it took to design a cover that fits with the story and appeals to the author and the target audience. It makes or breaks the first impression.

Don’t underestimate the power of the cover.

What are YOUR favourite covers? What type of cover style appeals to you the most? Let me know in the comments below!

Keep calm and read on,

Inspired by The Daily Post prompt