Judging a book by it’s cover?

One of the biggest taboos of reading is to never judge a book by its cover. Honestly, though, you know we all do it. A book that has a horrible cover is less likely to be picked up than a book with a nice cover.

For example, if I see a cover that has a woman dressed in Tudor-era clothing, I am much more likely to pick it up than if it has a castle on the cover. I like dark covers, with big, bold titles. Does this make me a bad person, because I pick the book up specifically by what I see on the cover?

This isn’t even just in bookstores. I am currently subscribed to three different email lists that send out free and discounted ebook emails each day. They are Freebooksy, Bookbub, and The Fussy Librarian. Freebooksy has completely free titles, Bookbub has both free and discounted titles, and The Fussy Librarian has two different lists: One for free, and one for discounted. I’ve loaded up my Kindle with over 1k titles thanks to these emails. When I receive the emails, I scroll through looking at the covers of the books, and if it catches my eye, I read the description. Very rarely do I read a description of a book where I don’t like the cover. For example, I rarely read covers with stereotypical romance covers, because I’m just not into that kind of thing. However, the other day a book with the title of “Loki” came up. Even though I could tell it was a romance, I read the description because I was hoping it might be a romance based on the Norse god of mischief (hint: it wasn’t). Still, the cover was a big part of my decision.

Now, am I saying you should completely ignore covers that aren’t your style, or as nice as you’d like? No. I’ve read some awesome books that had terrible covers. I’m just saying that we subconsciously decide whether or not we like a book simply by what’s on the cover.

Speaking of cover, I think it’s about time we reveal the cover for “Unmasking the Phantom”! So, here it is!

Keep an eye out for the first installment to be published soon!