I read your book because of the cover

Thanks to JoJo at http://jojosbookcorner.blogspot.com/ reviews for the idea!

I know it's shallow and is probably the reason publishing will sink and fail, but I generally do judge books by their cover when I don't know an author. This is doubly so, sadly again I admit, if you are self-publishing or making up a publishing imprint to publish under that name.

There are authors that I will buy their stuff no matter what the cover looked like. Baen, who has crappy covers, fulfills my shoot-'em-up yearnings, so I don't care what any of their covers look like. I expect romance covers to be cheesy and, the more cheesiness and less clothes, the more sex the characters will have.

However, if I've never heard of you, the cover is what draws my eye to your book when it's on a book shelf or on a page of book covers online. And, due to associations that the image conjures up with other books, I may or may not pick up your novel to read the back cover. I know, I know, I'm evil.

Here's a good example. There is a trend now amongst some YA books to look like the Twilight covers. Minimalist with hands or objects, dark glossy covers, with a couple of vibrant colours to snap off the cover. But, see, that reminds me of Twilight and I just walk on by.

Likewise, if I see a poorly designed cover from a small press or a self-published author, I generally assume that they haven't bothered to put the time into making a cover. Then, I have to wonder if that same attitude went into editing the book, too.

As an author, I know all too well how little say we often have in our covers. I've been fortune with MuseItUp Publishing that I have some latitude in the covers; from what I've heard in talking to other authors, significantly more latitude.  And, I wish that I could say I read every single back-of-the-book blurb out there and ignore the cover.

But that would be a lie. I do judge if I'm going to pick up your book to read more simply by your cover (and, sometimes the titles..if it has the word Dragon anywhere in it, I walk on by, too).

Am I the only one?