Stories uncovered: An exploration of book covers and their effects on readers' buying habits

This project comes in two parts: an analysis of the importance of design, and a creative writing piece. Despite the popular phrase “never judge a book by its cover,” as readers people tend to do exactly that. Even though the book itself may be very interesting and well written, if a book cover is not successfully well designed, many readers choose to ignore that book in favor of one with a more eye-catching cover. In addition to the book’s cover, the book jacket can serve as a promotional piece for a book and its design can be equally as important in promoting and selling the book. As Nicole Matthews states in Judging a Book By Its Cover, “book jackets are a key conduit through which negotiations take place between authors, the book trade and readers” (Matthews et al, xi). Because of this, a book’s cover and book jacket can be crucial in the success of the book itself. In order to design covers for books, one must understand the themes within each book as well as its essence. This will lead to the success or failure of the book cover design. (Author abstract)Michaud, A. (2015). Stories uncovered: An exploration of book covers and their effects on reader’s buying habits. Retrieved from http://academicarchive.snhu.ed