Today’s Book Blogger Hop question is: Have you ever bought a book because you liked its cover art?
Just once that I can remember. I bought Aria of the Sea by Dia Calhoun based on its cover–which didn’t even have the title on it, and I seem to recall there wasn’t a plot description anywhere either. This was a significant departure for me, since I rarely buy a book without reading it first. But I was at my library’s warehouse sale, and this was a gamble that only cost me a dollar. It was a good book too–and I think I was intrigued by the art style of the cover, and wondering what that heroine was thinking.
I can’t recall another time I’ve bought a book by cover–but I read books that way often. My practice when browsing at the library is to find an intriguing title, look at the cover (usually a pretty good hint of genre and style, though not always), and then read about two sentences of the plot description. At that point a book either has me or not.
Do you look at covers when you buy books? How heavily do they weigh with you?
I pick up books in the bookstore if I like the cover, but more often than not I’ll steer away from many books because of their covers. All those perfect women making eyes at a ripped man, even if they have no romance in them! Hate them! But as with Diane, I put more store on the blurb and anything real readers say. Newspaper reviews (and their quotes) are no help at all!
I’m first drawn (or not) by the cover art on a book. If the cover art doesn’t interest me, the chances are I’ll never even look at it.. I normally don’t buy a book without reading the blurb on the back to see if sounds like something I’d like to read. However, I did pick up and put down Killashandra by Anne McCaffrey several times over more than a year. I finally bought it because I was tired of picking it up every time I saw it. And that experience made me a little more likely to buy based on cover art in the future; I ended up reading the whole series and really loved it.
Covers don’t weigh with me at all since most of the books I read are on my Kindle. They do HAVE cover art, but I am more interested in the plot summary and user reviews to help me decide whether to buy the book and read it. It’s a nice feature of e-readers that you can see what various reviewers thought of the book (the professionals) and get a sense of how “popular” it is. I usually look at some of the 5 star and 1 star reviews to get a sense of what people really liked and really disliked about the book before I buy it.