Readers of the #Fediverse, I would greatly appreciate your participation in this #Mastodon poll: Do you judge books by their covers?

[nlowell@zirk.us]

@lonelyboy1977

Muddy, illegible, difficult thumbnails.

If it's just a smudge on my screen, I'll pass it by.

Give me a title, an author, and maybe a picture to clue me in that the publisher knows what should be on a book and I'll have more confidence that they know what should be IN the book.

[mloxton@med-mastodon.com]

@lonelyboy1977
No but ...

The instinctive pull with physical books is strong, and it takes effort to reject. I do notice that for eBooks, this changes, and the cover is almost entirely irrelevant to me. For eBooks, I am scanning title, author, topic, and the image is just a nice bullet point to separate the list

[agt@pnw.zone]

@lonelyboy1977

I don't want it to, but it does.

[xanatos@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@lonelyboy1977 Most of the time I buy books of an series based on recommendations.

So the cover is nothing I really look at BUT a nice cover art is still nice to look at

[evoterra@podvibes.co]

@lonelyboy1977

A great book cover gets my attention, then I read the jacket cover copy to see if it’s for me.

A bad book cover ensures I will not.

[lonelyboy1977@mastodon.social]

@mloxton That is an interesting observation about ebooks. Thanks for taking a moment out of your day to reply.

[danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host]

@lonelyboy1977 I think the cover tells me a lot about the genre to expect. White with black sans-serif lettering: The author is indie ND and has put their soul into this. Characters drawn outline comic-style: humorous fantasy. Blue background, a single object (eg: feather), serif font: pretentious lit...

[lonelyboy1977@mastodon.social]

@evoterra My assumption is that this is probably true for most readers. Thank you for your response.

[mgorny@mastodon.com.pl]

@lonelyboy1977, err, given that I mostly read ebooks, I often don't even notice the cover.

[lonelyboy1977@mastodon.social]

@danlyke That is an interesting observation to make. Now I’m going to have to keep an eye out to see if I can observe the same.

[lonelyboy1977@mastodon.social]

@mgorny That is interesting. So how do you decide which ebooks to read or which ones not to read?

[melonbusey@mastodon.social]

@lonelyboy1977 The cover influences whether or not I read the synopsis on the back, which is where the conscious decision is made in the choice to read or not read. I don’t think of judgement of the cover as a choice, it’s probably more an instinct that I’m drawn to it or not.

[mgorny@mastodon.com.pl]

@lonelyboy1977, for fiction stuff, I just follow a bunch of series I've started and hadn't needed to figure out anything new yet. For nonfiction, usually a single book gives me one or two pointers to what to read next. Also Fedi.

[mloxton@med-mastodon.com]

@lonelyboy1977
This thread fascinates me.

Firstly, how hard some readers push on the role covers play in their decisions - despite the cover art being the thing LEAST coupled to the content, and also least under the control of the author.

But then also how this is a lid on a whole other can of worms - that the cover art is often going to cost the author more than the book will earn in royalties if they are indie writers. Cover art is $300-$1k a pop.

So are books just a way to sell cover art?

[mcrocker@mstdn.ca]

@lonelyboy1977
Nope. The titles are what grab my interest.

[danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host]

@lonelyboy1977 I suspect it's more nuanced than that, but... I'm gonna have to step outside to our free library and see what's vibing with me there this morning.

But yeah, if I'm in a bookstore, there's a lot of "that looks intriguing" or "not gonna bother" based on cover design.

Now I wanna go browse the SF/Fantasy shelves at my local bookstore looking for correlations between cover design and author gender...

[lonelyboy1977@mastodon.social]

@mloxton I can’t say I’ve ever understood why people think the cover of a book has any bearing on the actual content of the book.

[paprikotka@mastodon.com.pl]

@lonelyboy1977 if cover strongly signifies genres I don't like then I guess I would be less inclined to check on the book's description. But that applies to small subset of fiction (e.g. specific types of romance).
On the other hand every now and then when a cover catches my eye, book's description and reviews turn out to be interesting enough to add it to my tbr (that's a long way from actually reading it, tho)

[mloxton@med-mastodon.com]

@lonelyboy1977
I guess they think the author had something to do with the cover design and is saying something with it?

I had close to zero choice or involvement in the cover of any of my non-fiction work I did via traditional publishing, and spent about five minutes on the cover art for my latest and indie published book.

I have sweated hours and hours over the cover art for my fiction, and it irks the absolute fuck out of me that every moment was stolen from actual writing. And the cost!!!!

[msiebeneicher@mastodontech.de]

@lonelyboy1977 more important for „normal“ books, less important for e-books