Discussion Post
Book Covers
“Don’t judge a book by its cover”. A quote we have ALL heard, probably many times. It’s used more often today when talking about people, but still holds the same meaning-try to figure out what’s behind what you first see before you make your assumptions.
Unfortunately, in the real world and the book world, this ‘rule’ is not followed. We’re constantly judging books by their covers. I used to NEVER read books with half naked people on the covers, now, that seems to be 75% of the books I read. Haha I was always (ironically) turned off by those kind of book covers, they always seemed… scandalous.
Can book covers affect how a book is perceived? 1000%. You have to make sure you’re using the right imagery to describe your book. If it’s a dark romance, you don’t want a book cover with bright colors and happy images. It’s not an easy task and there’s a reason there’s a job specifically for designing book covers. If you pick the wrong cover, you could risk people not being interested-negatively affecting your book. That’s why I think it’s sometimes safer to have a simple color and design and no people, on book covers.
I’m also not the biggest fan of people on the cover of books because it affects how I imagine the characters. Part of the reason I love reading instead of watching tv is because I get to imagine half of it. I recently read a book with a blonde tatted hockey player (Caspian) and instead of creating my own version of him, the freaking cover kept popping in my head. It was VERY frustrating.
These two book covers depicted above are from the book Founded on Goodbye by Kat Singleton. I first discovered the book on Goodreads and then went to my Kindle and downloaded it. The first book cover was used on Goodreads and the second was used on Kindle. (It might have changed by now) It was not the book cover through Goodreads that sold me though. I had to read the description to really be sold on it. I actually prefer the second book cover for this book. Not only because it captures the main focus of the book perfectly, but as mentioned before, I’m not a fan of people on covers. How I imagined the main character for this book, is nothing like the guy on the first cover of this book.
These book covers are from the After series by Anna Todd. She originally wrote the series on Wattpad, which is where the first picture is from. When it was published through a publisher, the second book cover was used. And finally, the last book cover was used when the movie version of the book was going to be released.
Growing up, I was adamant about NEVER buying a book that had the movie version of the book cover. It felt… I don’t know… Like a betrayal to the original cover? I’m not sure. BUT this mindset changed after I watched Pride & Prejudice (Kiera Knightley version) for the first time and quickly bought the movie book cover version. The P&P movie and the book are two of my absolute favorites and it was then I decided that I would only ever get the movie cover version if I liked the movie version. This doesn’t happen often.
Out of all these versions, the one I’m drawn the most to, is the first one.
I try not to judge a book by its cover, but man is it hard. I’m definitely better than I used to be. There are still certain covers that draw me in more and those that don’t do it for me, but now, I always read the description before I say no.
What do you think? Do you judge books by their covers? Will certain book covers deter you from purchasing the book?
Diary of a bookworm 
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