User:	blzblack
Date:	2008-07-21 23:37 (UTC)
Subject:	(no subject)

I liked cool, funky looking stuff, like OMNI used for illustrations. Off beat.

But also the thrill of something wild & wooly was afoot: Like the colors in Roger Zelazny's Amber series during the 80s (I don't consistently like this artist's work, but here it was somehow magical).

User: jaylake Date: 2008-07-21 23:40 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

I think I have those editions at home, actually. Very saturated, right, with dark backgrounds?

User:	blzblack
Date:	2008-07-21 23:56 (UTC)
Subject:	(no subject)

That's it (Tim White? I've got a collection of his work somewhere).

Here's a link: http://www.sfreviews.net/9princes.html

I think this image is too dark, however.

User: ygolonac Date: 2008-07-21 23:41 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Cover art did influence me and still does. Mainly by catching my eye somehow and getting me to pull that particular book down for a closer look instead of the books on either side of it.

Sometimes too, I'm in the mood for a particular type of book and the cover art might imply that a book is of the sort I'm looking for. It's really annoying when cover art lies though. If it's sort of 'artsy' cover art, then it can't really lie, but if it's more realistic and then has little or nothing to do with the inside, I get annoyed by it.

Back before the internet I could usually count on books with that spirally Del Rey logo on the cover to be pretty good. I got a bunch of those Del Rey paperbacks on my shelf.

User: sheelangig Date: 2008-07-21 23:41 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Covers make me pick it up, but the blurbs and the first paragraph and the other details can certainly make me put it back on the shelf.

I find it annoying as heck to have read a book and then look again at the cover and discover that the artist apparently did NOT read the book. I feel bad for the author and want to slap some suits around. And I'm not even in the business!

User: smashingstars Date: 2008-07-21 23:42 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

I can't say cover art didn't matter to me at all, but unless it was a truly horrific cover, I really didn't mind. In high school a few students and I met Lee Killough, who showed us the cover of her book The Doppleganger Gambit and talked about how covers came about. Until then I didn't realize an author often had little or no input on what the artist created for the cover. At that point I stopped holding bad cover art against the authors.

User: khaybee Date: 2008-07-21 23:45 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

I worked in a genre book store, and was allowed to read anything in the store as long as I didn't crack the spine. I read many paperbacks that were only slightly open.

User: casacorona Date: 2008-07-21 23:47 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Cover art came to matter more to me as time went on. In the early years of being a book buyer, I pretty much bought any new paperback SF book I found. There weren't that many being published. Hardcover releases I read in the library, where they take the dust jackets off before the books go on the shelves.

Later, covers became a way of sorting types of sf or fantasy, and I think most people do that whether they know it or not. I knew what a book I had liked looked like. When I was browsing the bookstore shelves, I would be attracted to books that looked like that, no matter who the author was.

SF/F has an elaborate, mostly uncatalogued, vocabulary of hieroglyphic cover elements. We use it all the time, though we also try to push the edges of it and add new meaningful symbols.

User: will_couvillier Date: 2008-07-21 23:48 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

I was a reader/collector long before the internet. In fact I have like 5K + paperbacks and boxes of hb in storage, all pre-1989. My buying habits? Haunt the bookstores, liquor stores (there was one in my hometown that had racks of SF paperbacks. It's where I got my first 90 or so DAW collector numbers...

Also I answered ads in the back of mags. I really miss that original Change of Hobbit bookstore in California -- completed and obtained a LOT of my oldies thogh them!

User: weirman Date: 2008-07-22 00:00 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

The Change of Hobbit is gone? That's tragic news. I used to love going in there back in the day.

User: will_couvillier Date: 2008-07-22 02:09 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

It was gone, but there is another now. I can't say if it is the one I bought from in the 70's and 80s, but I do know that that one closed. Found that out with a order returned.

User: yourbob Date: 2008-07-21 23:50 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

As a teenage closet case, I admit to buying too many books with pretty men on the cover. No longer being a closet case or teenager, I buy fewer but haven't stopped looking at them when they're "faced". Still gets some attention, but I actually look for info on the story/author before taking it to checkout.

User: slimequeen Date: 2008-07-21 23:53 (UTC) Subject: (no subject) Keyword: Animated slime

I am guilty of judging books by their covers. If I found a cover to be very ugly, I probably would not buy the book. I always loved Larry Elmore's artwork and bought several books just because he did the covers (and yes, some of them sucked, too).

Pre-internet, the biggest factor in buying/checking-out a book would be the back cover blurb. Now I rely more on recommendations and Amazon reviews.

User: jess_ka Date: 2008-07-21 23:53 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

A cover might attract me, but I'd only buy the book if the insides actually looked interesting, too. And I ignored the covers for authors I knew and liked.

You know, of course, my own cover woe.

User: weirman Date: 2008-07-21 23:58 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Before the internet cover art might draw me to pick up a book, but only to read the back cover or the flyleaf. Buying books was a rare treat for me and for that reason I chose carefully. I'd learned early on that the cover was often misleading, and it was a rare book that alone had a cover intriguing enough to buy on the strength of that alone.

User: kadath Date: 2008-07-22 00:01 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Cover art is pretty much only a negative for me. Good cover art doesn't matter. Shitty cover art will keep me from buying if it's not by an author who's a known quantity. And only specific types of shitty art, at that. Bikini chicks, the title character posing with absolutely no indication of anything else happening, dragons in the middle distance circling a castle with the Ensemble Cast in the foreground...that sort of thing.

User: mindyklasky Date: 2008-07-22 00:09 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

At first, I ticked the box that said "cover art" but then I tried to figure out my answer to the third question, and I could not come up with a single example where I remembered choosing a book based on a cover. I know that I'm much more verbal than visual - in an art museum, I read the notes on the wall before I look at the painting. I think that wiring controls my book selection as well. (I can, though, tell whether a cover is good or bad, when I look at it...)

User: gaaneden Date: 2008-07-22 00:15 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Cover art was good to catch my eye for authors I was not familiar with. Once it did that, I would read the back blurb to see if it was something I would be interested in.

User: irismoonlight Date: 2008-07-22 00:18 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Cover art... s
Sometimes it stunned me with how wonderful it was, but I didn't buy the book because I was after something to read, not hang on my wall.

Sometimes it turned me off, but I bought it anyway because I liked the author/concept.

Once in a rare while I'd buy a book based on the cover art alone, but not very often.

User: bjcooper Date: 2008-07-22 00:40 (UTC) Subject: Cover Art

I often liked unusual covers. Simple often caught my eye. I also used cover art to separate out sub-genres - was it rocket stuff, people oriented, etc. It was also a way to avoid romance books, which I detested for years. A few times I even bought SECOND COPIES of books because I liked various versions of the cover art. That, of course, would be things like Hienlein's and Niven's and the like. Is that geeky or what?

User: jtdiii Date: 2008-07-22 00:42 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

The cover might catch my eye, but it was the blurb that made me buy the book. I also have a general rule that any book that relies on reviews and quotes over a well written blurb is not worth buying.

User: squirrel_monkey Date: 2008-07-22 00:45 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Where's the option of 'we had to go through hell to buy books; cover art was irrelevant'?

User:	lindadee
Date:	2008-07-22 00:48 (UTC)
Subject:	(no subject)

I don't buy books based solely on the cover, but I do enjoy cover art. If a book has a nice (to me) cover, I'll read the blurb about the plot and determine if it's something I want to read.

User: kate_schaefer Date: 2008-07-22 00:50 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

I'm amazed that anyone would choose anything but the dust mouse answer.

Everything I knew about books before I was about 20 was mediated by libraries. Everything. Most of the library books I read had been read many times before they reached me, so they had been rebound before I read them. Library bindings are all alike, varying only by the colors available to the binders the day the books were rebound.

I bought very few books in my youth, having no money. I selected those few books based on authors I'd read in the Worthington Public Library.

I worked in a bookstore for a while in my early twenties, but since I still had no money, I still didn't buy books, or at least I bought very few except those required for classes.

(Oh, I know, I'm not being useful here.)

User: farmgirl1146 Date: 2008-07-22 04:39 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

My experience is much like Kate's, so I don't need to say more. Much of my early 20's reading was dictated by professors, I have one of those literature degrees.

User: martianmooncrab Date: 2008-07-22 00:50 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

I was reduced to scavenging books at grocery store displays and racks at the drug stores.. or used book stores, how I shopped for books? If I hadnt read it I bought it. I dont think they had more than 4-10 titles a month in paperback.

User: stillnotbored Date: 2008-07-22 01:03 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

The older I've gotten the more important cover art has become to me. So important in fact that certain types of covers will keep me from buying a book.

I might be missing some good books that way, but I've been burned often enough in the bad cover=book that I never finish I'm wary without a trusted friend's recommendation.

User: kzmiller Date: 2008-07-22 01:05 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

I didn't look for covers that interested me so much as covers that didn't have elements of fantasy that I'd burned out on. I still do that. If the cover suggests a trope that would make we want to poke my eyes out rather than read, I'll give the blurbs and first few pages a chance.

I know authors don't get to pick their cover art, so my sorting method does eliminate what might be an interesting story for me. I'm sure there is many a novel wrapped in a cover with unicorns, dragons, fairies and flying cats all talking to each other around a pre-adolescent girl with a halo in which none of these elements are actually within the book. It's just as likely that all these elements are in the story but in such a way that I'd love it instantly. But given so many books and finite time ...

User: lisa_marli Date: 2008-07-22 01:06 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

On Art work. I looked for something that didn't look cheezy generic. Like Hopefully the Artist read at least an excerpt of the book and spent some time on it. Rather than the editor calling the secretary and going "This book has an elf, a unicorn and a harper, what kinda art do we have in the pile that fits?" "How about a midget, a pipe player and a raccoon." "That will do."
And I actually would read the blurbs on the back.
Ballantine on the spline would usually get my attention. Yes, I actually did notice WHO published the Good Stuff.
And Ace, not because they were always good, but they were usually cheap! And I come from a family of Readers!
I was ELEVEN before I finally could get to the Teen and Adult Sections at my local library. And then it was because my mother signed the permission slip. I wanted my Asimov, Bradbury, and Agatha Christie, Damn It!

User: fenrah Date: 2008-07-22 01:08 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

I'm always attracted by pretty cover art, but I find most traditional adult fantasy and sci-fi cover art repellent. To me, YA covers are often prettier - less busy, simpler, brighter, flatter colors, more arresting.

User: muneraven Date: 2008-07-22 17:28 (UTC) Subject: That is very true

I agree that YA cover art is far less apt to be cheesy. When I peruse that section in the bookstore I often want to read many of the books there just based on the title and cover art. Alas, often reading the back blurb reminds me that I am too old to be entertained by romantic teenage angst anymore, lol. But I agree about the cover art!

User: libertango Date: 2008-07-22 01:18 (UTC) Subject: Cover art

akirlu will tell you -- I'm very sensitive to graphic design and type. So cover art, to me, is frequently a side indication of to what degree the publisher has faith in the product. This is true not only of books, but also of music, at least for me.

The original Afro-Celt Sound System album, for instance -- I found that in a 99-cent bin. I recognized from the spine that it was a RealWorld records release, but it was done in a fuzzy, unique way. I picked it up because I already knew and liked Peter Gabriel's taste in world music, and figured they'd never OK a cover that bent the template they'd established unless they had enough faith in the project that it'd overcome that.

Stephen Minkin's book A No Doubt Mad Idea leaped off the shelf at me in my college's bookstore -- a pen and ink drawing of an idealized town on the California coast, with a calligraphed spine. I had just read Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language, and John Brunner's The Shockwave Rider, and the town looked very much like Brunner's Precipice. (Good thing, too -- I've since talked to Minkin once or twice, and know there were only about 500 copies of that book.) Idea has been hugely influential to me since -- it's both the best novel I know of about 1970's California, and the best novel I know about games as a topic of study.

I can't always put my finger on what I'm reacting to. Like my restaurant radar, I can only confess to a Potter Stewart moment, know it when I see it, and act accordingly.

User: snippy Date: 2008-07-22 01:31 (UTC) Subject: Cover art influencing book purchases

Some art turns me off a book; the best art only adds to the chance I'll pick the book up and examine it in my usual fashion (read a couple of pages, read the blurbs, read *who* did the blurbs) before deciding whether to buy it.

User: corwynofamber Date: 2008-07-22 03:36 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

When book shopping in the bookstore, it went thusly walk down the aisle looking at titles, once I saw a title that intrigued me (whether it was by an author known to me or not), I would pull the book and look at the cover art and then read the back cover blurb.

The cover art by itself was not a deciding factor, but it could help a mediocre back cover blurb and maybe get me to buy something I might not otherwise have bought.

User:	joycemocha
Date:	2008-07-22 03:42 (UTC)
Subject:	(no subject)

Bookstore? What was that?

Seriously, until late in my high school years, my bookstore access was rather limited (omit overprotective tale of woe here). I bought most of my books through Scholastic Book Club (yes! seriously! guess where I got my copy of Dune and my first copy of Lord of the Rings!) and off of the wire racks at the grocery store in town (fairly new) and the wire racks at the country stores nearby (somewhat dusty and not so new). In high school I had a 4-H summer school at Oregon State and I kinda sorta ran wild in the book store there. Otherwise, my bookstore visits were limited to a Christian bookstore next to the grocery store.

Shrug. Hey, it was Springfield, Oregon.

User: panzertron Date: 2008-07-22 03:43 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

I think interesting titles and synopses were what sucked me in, more than cover art. Not that cover art doesn't matter, but it's more important to me that the book is an interesting read.

User: icedrake Date: 2008-07-22 04:07 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Compared to North American cover art, the Russian cover art of my childhood was largely non-existent. The books, by and large -- and I'm thinking specifically of SFF books -- came in hardcover, with embossed text and usually no cover art whatsoever. The occasional black and white illustration inside, but that's about it. Of course that could be my parents' shopping preferences showing themselves.

When I was buying books in the short period where I had money and didn't have the internets, the cover art alone would be insufficient to make me buy a new book.

I am pretty risk-averse when it comes to new authors, so I'm much more likely to pick one up from the library first, or go with a friend's recommendation. Though the latter has led me down some truly horrible paths before.

User: renatus Date: 2008-07-22 06:46 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

I read/bought a lot of stuff despite the cover art, which often implied whichever book was about silly blonde women with huge knockers, or big vapid looking manly men with swords/guns/blasters.

Lots of cover art has gotten much better, thankfully.

User: nayad Date: 2008-07-22 08:04 (UTC) Subject: (no subject) Keyword: kronk no sense

Cover art is a big influence on my decisions when buying books. It's often the tie-breaker between two novels that sound equally interesting. I feel like that's unfair to the writer, but since I can't buy every book I want, I go with the ones that sound fascinating *and* look pretty.

User: tchernabyelo Date: 2008-07-22 08:49 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Cover art in the UK (even back in the 70s/80s when I was buying books with very little knowledge of what I might and might not like) has long been very different from that in the US. I tend to find, even now, most US cover art makes me shudder; it tends to the busy and is often very badly laid out. UK cover art tends to focus much more on a single definable image.

Of course, the tendency to show rather scantily clad females on the cover still exists, though less so than in my younger days. I live in mortal fear of finally getting a contract for a bunch of Yi Qin books, and discovering that when she makes it onto the cover, virtually all her clothes suddenly fall off...

User: lazy_neutrino Date: 2008-07-22 10:05 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

I don't buy books over the Internet. I like to handle a book, spend time with it, maybe visit it a few times, before I buy it.

...I spend a lot of time in bookshops.

User: etcet Date: 2008-07-22 12:15 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

I typically knew what I wanted when I walked in, and would, back in the days of stores like "Media Play" select the version or cover I liked best for a particular volume (I preferred regular "pocket size" paperbacks to trade, and went through a phase of assembling a hardcover collection in a particular style by a certain author).

I would occasionally check out nearby stuff, since "hey, it's in the same genre, does any of it look interesting?" but I'm typically more swayed by a good title than catchy cover art.

unless it's got a particularly hot babe on it. i am nothing if not cheap and visually-stimulated in certain respects.

User: neutronjockey Date: 2008-07-22 13:44 (UTC) Subject: (no subject) Keyword: Aroo?!

I admit, that even early on I was a publisher shopper. I'm not sure when it started or when I came to the conclusion that certain publishers produced reading material that was preferable to my tastes but I did at a young age.

Now, I typically buy books from people that I have either met (online or IRL), or books recommended from those I know.

User: threeoutside Date: 2008-07-22 16:42 (UTC) Subject: Other thoughts on cover art...

Sometimes a cursory glance at a cover will fool you. I'm thinking of James P. Hogan's Martian Knightlife (http://www.amazon.com/Martian-Knightlife-James-P-Hogan/dp/0743435915/ref=sr_1_93?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216744520&sr=1-93) and Eric Flint's Mother of Demons (http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1216744633/ref=sr_pg_4?ie=UTF8&rs=1000&keywords=Eric%20Flint&rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3AEric%20Flint&page=4).

I had certain, shall we say, derogatory thoughts about the cover art until I'd read the books, then I looked at the cover again and realized, Holy Smoke! It's all there! Very subtle, but the art is totally accurate and besides, what you think at first glance is going on in the picture, ain't it at all. You don't get it until you've read the book.

That impresses me.

User: muneraven Date: 2008-07-22 17:23 (UTC) Subject: Does cover art influence me?

Horrible cover art can repel me from a book. Wonderful cover art can make me pick up a book that I would not have picked up otherwise. But 90% of cover art isn't a big deal for me.

Examples:

Bad cover: The original hardcover art on Patrick Rothfuss' "The Name of the Wind" was so bad that I refused to buy it for a long time, thus missing out on a good book for several months. Note: They changed the cover and it is much better now! Honestly, Patrick's hero is NOT a second-rate heavy metal guitarist.

Good cover: The covers of Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson books were so interesting-looking that I gave them a chance when I don't really read a lot of paranormal mystery/romance stuff. Good choice. I enjoyed them. Brigg's heroine is as cool as her picture on the cover.

User: tetar Date: 2008-07-22 19:00 (UTC) Subject: Cover Art

Covers please me when they're good, annoy me when they suck, and also annoy me when they're irrelevant. Generic covers are the absolute worst, akin to categorical thinking, which is properly called bigotry. Cover art, like typesetting and other aesthetic considerations, can enhance a work, and certainly good art can draw the eye and thus entice inspection, but a book sells itself with a holistic combination of what the reader brings, what the book offers, and even such things as mood, money in pocket, and whether one is browsing comfortably or pressured and rushed.

How much does cover art affect my book buying? Depends on the cover, the book, and dozens of other subtle considerations.

--tetar

User: brni Date: 2008-07-22 22:06 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Cover art and/or the right title will influence me to pull a book off the shelf and look at it. But it's the first paragraph that determines whether I'll take the book home with me.

User: nolly Date: 2008-07-25 19:00 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Cover art can catch my eye, but back of the book / jacket flap copy is what sells it to me.