Never Judge a Book by its Cover?

As part of the Sydney’s Writers’ Festival and his appearance on 702Sydney, Jon Page @PnPBookseller from Pages and Pages (the best book store north of the Harbour Bridge), posed, among others, the question “How much do covers influence your decision to pick up a book?”

We all know the expression ‘never judge a book by its cover’, but in such a saturated market, do we have any other choice? Unless it’s an author we’re familiar with, or a book that’s been recommended by a friend, how else can we even begin to start searching for our next read?

Covers are the first and most prominent marketing tool book sellers have and I don’t really see what’s wrong with that. Let’s face it. My husband is probably never going to pick up a book with a hot pink, glittered high heel front and centre. And I’m unlikely to pick up a book with a cover depicting a dismembered body (actually, neither is my husband, probably). The cover tells you, very quickly, what genre the book is and who the target audience is.

Imagine if all the covers were blank, with just the title and author’s name.  



A book about a couple in their 60s (their twilight years), or a romance set at sunset?



a book about ships and storms that would appeal to men?









 is this a war story? Or a story about someone’s  grandmother?

Without covers we’d be lost. They help us navigate the endless titles out there. Help us find our way.

Don’t get me wrong though. Sometimes a book comes our way and the cover isn’t one that would normally compel us to pick up the book. The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh was recommended to my book club by our librarian and I’m not sure I would have picked it up from the shelf with it’s Australian cover (the US one was very different -  but that’s another blog post), and it is one of my favourite recent reads (other than the ending, hated that– another blog post, perhaps).

So do judge your book by its cover, but don’t be afraid to step outside your box once in a while and try something new. Who knows what you’ll find?

How about you? “How much do covers influence your decision to pick up a book?”

S

keep chasing those pavements

current status: 2 fulls out, 2 partials out, and a frightening number of rejections in  - in fact, let's stop counting those :)