Can You Judge a Book by its Cover?

Like most writers, I often wonder about the efficacy of good cover design. From all directions, I hear the assertion that good covers sell books and bad covers cost sales. Yet I have never seen any real evidence to support this belief (a scientific study, for example), just anecdotes and more assertions. Clearly, to some, it seems self-evident but to me it does not. I can see the reasoning behind it, I can understand that some cover styles may be genre-appropriate (or, at least, typical) while some are not, but even the best reasoning can never be as good as hard evidence.

I was having this debate recently with some fellow writers – all of whom are completely convinced that covers sell books or cost sales. I was the only sceptic. Naturally, talk turned to the quality of our own covers and I took some flack for constructive criticism of the Timesplash series covers and for the cover of my self-published novel, The Credulity Nexus (read all about it). While I didn’t have much input into the Timesplash covers, The Credulity Nexus design was all my own work (the artwork and fonts came from other people, I just put it all together).

Then someone suggested that one of the cover designers in our group (yes, some people can design covers for a living and write books) should redesign The Credulity Nexus cover, I should put it on the book and then we should look at how sales are affected. Intrigued, I agreed. Also, similarly intrigued, writer Leigh K. Hunt (who does cover design under the business name Dwell Design & Press) did a new cover and kindly donated it for the purpose.

Here are the two covers. On the left is the original amateur design, and on the right is the new professional design.

The difference is pretty striking, isn’t it? The old design was rather dark, gothic and a bit sinister. The new design is brighter, technological and emotionally neutral. But will the change affect sales? Only time will tell. As of today, the book is for sale on Amazon, Smashwords and Kobo (other retailers to follow in due course) with the new cover. If you haven’t bought The Credulity Nexus – either because the cover put you off, or because it just didn’t attract you enough – you may be feeling the urge to change your mind. On the other hand, you might just want to buy a copy to mess with my head. Either way is fine.

Whatever, I’d be very interested in your views on these covers. Does one make you want to buy one more than the other? In fact, I’m interested to hear what you think about book covers in general – especially if you actually have some real evidence to support or refute the popular view that covers make a real difference to sales.