When was the last time you read a book without ever seeing its cover? They’re the first thing you see and I believe our experience of books is intrinsically tied up with the way that they look. If this is the case, is it even possible to avoid judging them? Bookstores and libraries have a wealth of choice, so a book cover has to be enticing enough that you pick it up in the first place. If the cover isn’t the genre you’re looking for, you might put the book down before even reaching the blurb. Designing a book cover requires a significant amount of effort and thought: it can make or break book sales.
Plenty of people also actively focus on the aesthetics of books. If given the choice between two designs of the same book, I’m sure lots of people would choose to buy the nicer (in their opinion) of the two. I know when I buy classics I’m always particularly drawn to the beautiful clothbound editions. Although I’ve only come to own one second-hand clothbound classic, so clearly costs can play a part too. I’ve also been tempted in the past to buy copies of books I already own just because a new version of the cover has come out, or in order to have matching covers for a trilogy or series (again, cost and wastage are prohibitive here for me). So there you have it. On several levels, plenty of people do in fact judge books by their covers. Sometimes more consciously than others.
I don’t mind if people choose aesthetic books to add to their collection. I’m happy that people enjoy reading, and buying a book for aesthetic purposes doesn’t stop you from actually reading it. The idea of choosing a book by its cover might be frowned upon, but if people are reading for enjoyment then is it really so wrong for aesthetics to be part of this enjoyment? In addition, book covers are a form of artistic expression. People collect art for the sole purpose of enjoying the way it looks; why can’t the art created by book cover designers and illustrators be similarly admired?
For those who believe we shouldn’t judge books by their covers, maybe this sounds controversial at best, terrible at worst. But the fact remains that plenty of people do judge books by their covers, so much so that it can affect book sales. According to Penguin publishing, designing a book cover requires designers, but also editors, marketing, sales, and production teams. Whilst the author is consulted and their input considered, it’s down to the art department to make the final decision. Publishing houses have to consider their target audience, retailers, and their competition whilst designing a book cover. This illustrates that we do in fact judge books by their covers. It means you can infer a lot about a book from the cover alone. You can often tell the genre, the narrative tone, the author (if you’ve read their other works), and their target demographics too. If you like books of a certain genre, you might pick up a book cover which reminds you of that. What comes to mind for me are books which might be classed as ‘dark academia’. These tend to look visually dark and often have covers in a gothic style. Think The Secret History, Babel, Ninth House, If We Were Villains. They all have different covers, and the books are in fact different in tone and contents, but you can tell they could all be grouped together as dark academia books.
Romance books are another example. To me, Ali Hazelwood and Hannah Grace’s book covers all follow similar aesthetics: they regularly feature swirling fonts and two lovers against pretty, often pastel, backgrounds. The covers alone show that they’re light hearted romance novels. Sometimes a book straddles multiple genres, and you can see which has been focused on through the cover design. Both Emily Henry and Sally Rooney’s novels feature covers with bold coloured and minimalistic backgrounds. Henry’s book covers, however, use brighter and more saturated colours and tend to also feature two romantic leads. This gives the impression that her books fit within the romance genre, but might have a higher degree of realism than Hazelwood’s, for example. The covers of Rooney’s books, on the other hand, tend to opt for more muted tones of red or green and are more minimalistic covers than Henry’s. This indicates that whilst there might be a romantic story, the real draw is literary fiction and an element of realism, rather than a guaranteed happy ending.
All of this suggests that book covers often follow cover design trends: minimalistic covers with muted colours for realism, pastels and a happy couple for romance. It seems that designing a book cover involves the difficult task of trying to create something that follows a trend whilst also being individual enough to be set apart from competitors. And sometimes, this leads to incredibly similar covers. The first book in Lauren Child’s Ruby Redfort series, marketed towards 9 -14 year olds, came out in 2011. The first Geek Girl book, written by Holly Smale, was published in 2013. Around two years after this, the Ruby Redfort series underwent cover redesigns, and when I saw them I was immediately reminded of the Geek Girl covers. Coincidentally, Harper Collins was the publishing house behind both covers. It felt like a direct message to the readers: if you liked Geek Girl, read this! I was surprised. Having read both and only liked one of the two series, I didn’t think they were all that similar. But it makes sense; if book covers really do influence what we buy, why not follow the successes of other books. Why not take advantage of fans of one book looking for their next fix in the form of another? And if book covers are a marketing tool, maybe we should judge books by their covers.
However, by judging a book by its cover alone, we may end up judging authors by the one part of their book which they have had little to no control over. Not all book covers are successful. I was disappointed at the redesign of Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows duology. The covers went from conveying a mysterious fantasy story set in the same universe as Bardugo’s other books, to covers which I would likely interpret as literary fiction or Romance. They don’t represent the contents or mood of the books, and I’ve seen others online say similar things. I remember seeing them and thinking that if I saw the new covers in a bookstore, I wouldn’t be drawn to them in the same way. That’s not to say I wouldn’t pick up the books at all, but would I buy them? I’m not convinced.
Maybe ‘judge’ is the wrong word. We should accept that we are influenced by book covers. That they do contribute to the opinion we form of a book. That being drawn to a cover can be the reason we pick it up in the first place. But we need to be conscious of this. Maybe we need to start giving a chance to the books we wouldn’t usually take a second glance at.
