Can you judge a book by its cover?
27th August 2007
Read it. Tyler Cowan is apparently an economist even when walking down the street. Not the sort of life I would choose, but it’s no doubt good to have at least one wandering around.
The only time I’ve ever bought a book solely because of its cover, it was Fellowship of the Ring, which I bought because the cover art made me think it was one of Andre Norton’s Witch World series. That worked out rather well.
August 28th, 2007 at 10:49
It’s an interesting experiment, but it’s not quite as pure as he thinks it is. I can’t imagine ever having an opportunity to buy a book based solely on its cover.
Even if I buy a book I’ve never heard of, without opening it or turning it over, I found it in some section of a bookstore, and I was looking at that section because it has a high likelihood of having books I like. Even the remainders are grouped by subject matter. I suspect that I’d have a higher chance of getting a book I like by grabbing a randomly chosen book from the science fiction shelf than by scanning the covers of random books.
I also wonder if the covers that most appeal to me most are actually correlated to the books I will enjoy most. I know the publishers would like to achieve this, but every day I see advertisements that utterly fail to sell to me, so I *know* that advertisers don’t understand me. Also, a cover designed to sell a book to as many people as possible will probably not reach me — there aren’t that many people who share my tastes.
Another consideration: It’s not true that the cover is merely intended to generate positive word of mouth. It’s also intended to generate sales. I’m sure a publisher would happily use a cover that caused millions of people to buy a book, completely independently of whether the buyers will enjoy, or even read, it.