Can you judge a book by its cover?

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but lately romance novel covers are starting to look, well, EXACTLY THE SAME. I’m wondering if this has something to do with the influence of ebooks. I mean, really, how often do you actually look at the cover once it’s downloaded. Like almost never. Unless the guy is extremely hot. Even then. Not so much. As a result I don’t really think authors and publishers are putting much effort or originality into their covers. Just slap a random guy’s ripped torso on the front and call it good enough seems to be the attitude. The poor bastard doesn’t even need a head in many cases. Just some washboard abs and a waxed chest and we’re good to go.

I think back to all those dramatic bodice-rippers from the eighties. (Sorry, if this is before your time but I’m ancient.) They were works of art. Not only did the people depicted on the cover actually resemble the characters described in the book, the scene was usually recognizable as well. The cover actually told something about the story. I know, novel concept. Without reading a single word, you knew something about the contents. If the Hero was a pirate, you could tell by the cover. Okay, maybe a disproportionate amount of these heroes looked like Fabio but at least they changed his hair or wardrobe to reflect the situation.

For an indy author like myself, creating a cover on a budget is a grueling task. I have to scrutinize literally thousands of photographs for sale, trying to find one that reflects a scene from my book. I know, what torture, right? Ogling all those fabulous torsos…sigh. It’s a rough job, let me tell you. But after you’ve looked at a few hundred sets of rippling abs, something weird happens. They start to look pretty much the same. And it’s damn impossible to find ones that aren’t overexposed. I don’t know how many times I’ve purchased the rights to a photograph only to find that it’s been used by countless other authors. My first cover, Lost & Found, was created by one of those romance novel websites and not only is it awful, but I’ve seen that same couple in that identical cheesy pose on about a thousand other covers. Obviously, someone made a killing selling that particular photo.

Someday, I dream of being able to pick the models (especially the male one, he he) and the pose and having a professional photoshoot done to reflect a scene from my book rather than combing through countless websites looking for a shot that doesn’t directly contradict my physical descriptions.

So how important is the cover exactly? Does it influence whether you’ll buy the ebook or not? Or do you base your purchase on the description? Fifty Shades is probably one of the more successful romance novels recently and yet the cover was incredibly simple. Just a silver knotted tie on a black background. Almost non-descript. But it sold like crazy. What do you think? If the cover had been a shot of Mr. Grey’s naked torso, would it have sold more? Or less?