Am I alone in this?
It's just that, once an image is formed, it's hard for me to get past it, especially if the girl or guy on the cover isn't what I'd imagined them to be. I don't mind a little bit of imagination sparking, a beautiful gown, a handsome man in the background, maybe a nice landscape or bit of architecture that relates to the story, but when you show everything, it limits the mind.
With that all said, what constitutes a good cover? Personally, I'm not completely sure. To me, it's just something that sticks out to me or something that turns me off from the book. I do think that book covers really can make or break the book though. You hear "don't judge a book by it's cover" and I fully agree with that statement but sometimes, as a reader, its extremely hard to get past the cover. If it depicts something in a way that you don't like, what's to make you push past that an actually read the book?
I came up with a few things that would push me to read a book despite its cover:
- Author - if it's by a certain author that I like, no matter the cover, I'll still probably give it a read.
- Recommendations - If someone recommended a book to me (and I know they enjoy reading what I do) I'll give it a read no matter what.
- Back blurb or first few pages - If I happen to pick up a book (even if I dislike the cover) and I read the back blurb or the first few pages and like the style or am intrigued by a plot twist, I'll push past the cover in hopes of finding a diamond in the ruff.
