The problem with that test is it fails to take into consideration one's preference for certain genres or other variables in choosing a book. If you wanted to just look at the influence of the cover one would need to rule out other variables.
It depends on which way you were judging. There were covers which looked fantastic, but gave you little insight about the book's theme. So, which way do you score the cover?
Simple. Fans. Anything which taps into a fan base, and excludes non-fans, will rate higher than a non-fan based book.
I've opted out of buying books based on the cover. Yes, I had to go visit another book store, but it is all worth it! I also dislike movie/TV related book covers. I don't choose those if I can help it!
You can't judge a book by its cover, they're not like people. I kid, I kid. On a serious note though judging a book by its cover is like picking a car based on color or a computer because of how shiny it is.
That's the problem with the test. You can't isolate the cover from all the other factors we judge it on (previous knowledge of the book, perceived genre, perceived tone.) That's what I was clumsily trying to say earlier. You phrased it much better than me!
So, let's imagine the genre of this book (whatever that might me) was the type of book you like to read... you can tell me, with all honesty, that you'd buy this?
Would I buy it based on this cover? Hell-to-the-no. Would this cover prevent me from potentially purchasing this book?? Absolutely not. Because of the sad string of events that is my life, this cover would have my attention for two reasons. 1. Did the author make this book out of pure irony so there might be something fresh in this over saturated genre of "Oh em Ghee, vampires are so hawt!" 2. I'm not sure if it's because, deep down in the darkest part of my soul i hate myself, but I sometimes enjoy terrabad writing. Of course i'd read the summary, reviews, and a sample if possible before buying, but it's safe (if unfortunate) to say that this cover is not a deal breaker.
My experience says that, yes, people will make a choice based on something as arbitrary and inconsequential as the color or design. I've extolled the virtues of one product while pointing out the flaws and defects of another, only to have the customer pick the crappy one because it was a prettier color.
I played the little game and got... Most of the covers I rated as poor were simply messy and the title was not obvious upon first pass. Some seemed to be making me hunt for the title. Like the cover was purposefully trying to engage me to look at a bunch of other data before finding the title, which made me feel manipulated, which pissed me off.
I know there was a trend, for quite a while, where the author's name is stamped huge and bold on the cover, while the actual title is shoved off into the corner, almost invisible. This has mostly mellowed, but some authors like Stephen King and James Patterson still get some of this, like the author is all you need to know.
Well, here's an example of one of the covers it gave me to judge that I just thought was messy and had a lot of other text that was distracting to me. This one just looked unprofessional and homemade with all the text squeezed up to the top edge, leaving no easement (trim?) And this one, this one is seizure-inducing. I'm still not sure what it even says because the graphics are visually perturbing.
The Cleaving cover, I think, is actually very good. It's eye-catching, almost cute. The extra blurbs should be less prominent, but the differences in color and font size makes it pretty clear what is what. Dustin Diamond? It may as well be homemade. And I think the word you were looking for is margin. And, yikes. That last one was actually painful. Not just aesthetically, either. It just about gave me a charlie horse in my retina.
I would not buy that, based on the cover alone. Maybe if somebody recommended it to me as a genuinely good read. But no, I wouldn't. And I will be completely honest in my (probably) unfair assessment: this book cover tells me that the author is: a) an amateur and b) in a rush. It tells me that they have no idea what on earth they're doing and they don't really care how their book will be perceived, which tells me that the inside is probably full of irritating grammatical errors and cliched tropes. The cover is indicative of hurried self-publishing. I am skeptical of self-published authors because anybody with a computer can self-publish, but not everybody should. I know this is unfair because most of us are amateurs and many of us have or will self-publish. That's just what the cover makes me think of. I hated that one so much. It's too difficult to look at without making your brain feel like it's broken something.
Now, see, I like this. It's clever and it's unique (in a good way). It clearly doesn't appeal to everyone, but there's no denying the brilliance of its design.
Absolutely. But, the ratings the site is using, are the book's ratings. For a book like Justin's, the ratings will be naturally filtered, because only fans will have read it. And so it gets a higher rating. It was made to stand out. It does that at least. I guess the name & bio made the book.
Well, a book cover exists for a reason. It's to advertise the story to a potential reader along with the synopsis. Then, the reader can get an idea or a visualization in their head on what the book is about. That's marketing. To truly judge a book is to read the entire story and form your own opinion afterwards. Deciding to read a book based on the cover is part of the hook.
