I’m a bit obsessive when it comes to the covers of books. I will spend hours comparing the different editions of a novel, debating which I like the most and eventually where I’ll purchase it from. Nothing enraged me more than when a trilogy would decide to change up their cover style in the middle of the series. Not having a cohesive look or aesthetic throughout a saga was inexcusable.
I own around four hundred books, which I’ve been told by my parents is a lot. I care what’s on the covers because I believe if I’m choosing to buy the book rather than borrow it from the library I am not only purchasing the story inside but the art that embodies that story on the cover.
Like most seasoned readers I do judge a book by its cover. While an ugly cover might annoy me it doesn’t deter me as long as I’m intrigued by the plot; however, a beautiful cover can make me hand over my money with only a quick glance at the summary on the back. I think that some part of me thinks that if someone has taken enough time to put art on the cover that I enjoy then the content inside is worth a look.
I am very glad I didn’t think this way when starting my reading journey, because let me tell you the covers for YA books released around 2010 were not pretty. For some reason, publishers were under the impression that if they slapped the most generic-looking people on their covers they were guaranteed a bestseller. Books that I loved would have these covers that not only didn’t tell the reader anything about the story but also just looked bad. When I would give book recommendations to my friends I would always have to add a disclaimer explaining even though the cover was awful the content was great.
More recently I have noticed a new attention to covers that I don’t believe was present within the Young Adult genre before. Authors (or at least some of the ones I follow) have started to find artists that do fanart for their series and get them to design the cover of their next book. Charlie Bowater was an artist who not only got asked to design a cover for the final book in Sarah J Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses Trilogy but she was also given the opportunity to create a coloring book for fans of the series. Bowater’s involvement with this popular fantasy saga has increased her popularity and has also caused other authors with similar stories to reach out, asking if she will design their covers as well.
Famous series have started to come out with not only new covers but new spines that make a picture when put next to one another so that you have to buy each book in the series again (or for the first time) in order to complete the image.
While covers don’t always make or break a novel it would be foolish to ignore the impact they have
on a reader's decision to purchase a book.
on a reader's decision to purchase a book.
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