Would you read based off of the cover alone?

[ElijahRyne]

 

[dummycake]

if it was a special competition of books submitted by little children, maybe.

 

[SailusGebel]

No.

 

[Lysander_Works]

Never. I know how hard it is to get or make a cover worthy for the eyes. Important as covers are, they are expensive to do correctly.
If I see a terrible cover, I'm still gonna take a look under the hood and see what's going on in there.
The word style and diction is what I look for. Five word sentences every few spaces is a hard pass for me.

 

[Daitengu]

Covers mean a lot less to me on a webnovel. Mainly because all the harem stories like to put a hot chick on the cover instead of the protag. Second is, I consider an mspaint cover better than no cover. At least an attempt was made. I still remember the really crap cover Super Minion had. The story was much better lol

 

[Tempokai]

If there was an extra M in here, probably yea. But as is currently, no.

 

[fluffypie374]

A good cover can sometimes just be a black or white background with a readable title.
Go Le Immortality (Just move the M)

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

Covers, and tags. Especially tags. Even when the artwork is nice.

 

[Indicterra]

NGL cover does have a influence on me, when I see a good cover with proper title and shit, I like to think "Maybe this guy might be an established writer or this guy is serious and know what to do". Of course I have been proven wrong so many times, yet I still can't let the old habbit go.But I will say this, the summary for me is the most important part of the novel for me.

Cover grab my attention and summary and tags decide whether I will read it or not.

And you're really shouldn't take the opinion of people from this forum as base answer to such question not that i am insulting them quite contrary.

Most of the guys in this forum knows what they are doing, they are either well established authors or people who is very much experienced regarding writing and reading stories, peopl who are willing to wait for long time to see whether the story will go in good direction or not, keeping judgment to your stories to appropriate times and appearciate character and character development.

Unfortunately they only make what 5% of whole reader base. the other 95% percentage is people with attention span of 15 sec who will complain and leave you 1 star review the moment something happen that they personally don't like.

Unfortunately they are still 95%. If you understand what I am saying

 

[Insomniologist]

I never read based on the cover.
I take in everything before reading.

 

[ElijahRyne]

If there was an extra M in here, probably yea. But as is currently, no.

Fixed lol

 

[NineHeadHeavenDevouringSerpent]

At this point, any cover which doesn't have tits/cleavage/ass/obvious smut art I will atleast read the synopsis and maybe even first chapter.


Which that I now think it over has actually lessened my standards for cover art. I probably should be more scrutinizing but seriously it's the lack of options to blame, if I filter out all the smut stuff there's not much to search and even in them only few really don't have smut in them.

I'm using smut in the general terms, anything that caters to the lower "brain" stuffs, they may or may not actually have the smut tag.

But a hard book, when i go to buy books a lot goes into which ones i buy. First i need to understand what the damn book is about and connect with it, the cover shouldn't be gimmicky (like those financial advice book covers). It shouldn't be too vague either.

All in all, i wouldn't go far as to say i wouldn't judge a book by its cover but i wouldn't say i solely buy/read it based on the cover...yeah like probably millions do, I'm pretty normal in this regard

 

[TheMonotonePuppet]

View attachment 27638

Yes. But I think it could use some major polishing.

 

[ElijahRyne]

Yes. But I think it could use some major polishing.

Most definitely

 

[georgelee5786]

I wouldn't pick it up to look at the synopsis

 

[RepresentingEnvy]

No.

 

[Overdrive]

That is how I initially pick up the book, but reading the synopsis is necessary before starting a book

 

[Piisfun]

I might not even look based on the cover and title, but read on just those?
Almost never.

 

[K5Rakitan]

Only if there's an MFM throuple on it.

 

[Sagacious_Punk]

A cover entices the reader to take a closer look, but does not make the "sale" itself.

Good covers are like good trailers. They are supposed to draw attention first and foremost, telling the reader "look how cool I am, imagine what's inside".

Imagination alone was all well and good in the past. However, we now live in the digital era, where information overload is the daily news. These days, a good cover can, at best, hope to persuade people to pick up the book, read the blurb, and perhaps read the first few (or random) pages. If the cover manages that, then it has done its job. The rest is the purview of other marketing elements.

Of course, a "good cover" means an amalgam of three components: catchy/intriguing/epic title, enticing/rich/subversive image composition, and a smooth juxtaposition between the two (aka design).

Regards,
Sagacious