Book cover importance

[Shadowdancer]

Cover art of gaming products has very little impact on me. It's what's inside that counts. Good cover art is just a bonus if I'm already planning to buy it.

It might entice me to pick up the product and look through it. But buy it, no.

 

[Miho]

The book cover is always VERY important. Even those people who have posted saying it's not, probably don't realise how much it influenced their decision. The cover is the first thing you see and you instantly make choices based upon it. You may find it interesting and pick it up to look closer, or it's layout will associate it with another product that you already have.

Even though you may not like the cover it doesn't mean it didn't influence your decision. It's importance should not be underestimated - it always plays a part in the purchase of a book.

Try imagining if they didn't have covers and the front was just blank. How many would you pick up and read the back of before you got bored and left the shop? Just something to think about

PS. you specified "book cover" not "cover art" and that's what my reply refers to. Cover art is another thing entirely.... but I won't start on that one in this post

 

[Zappo]

Back when I had a decent game store in town, cover had the duty of attracting my eye to that particular book in a myriad of other books.

But while I would skim a book with an interesting cover, I would hardly buy it.

I just can't afford the luxury of buying a book from the cover. I have limited funds and must judge each buy very carefully.

 

[333 Dave]

I'm going against Eric here and saying I like designs better than pictures. Designs are almost universally done better than picture covers, and more likely to catch my eye. There are so many picture covers with bad horrible art.... I'd much rather a simple design that gets the point across.

 

[Furn_Darkside]

5 - I do judge a book by its cover. It shows the amount of effort, care, and resources that are being dedicated to the book.

But- that does not mean a nice cover will get me to buy a book, but a horrid cover will certainly turn me off of a book.

Of course, I usually hold this standard tighter for fiction then for gaming products.

Respectfully submitted
FD

 

[Davelozzi]

The book cover is always VERY important. Even those people who have posted saying it's not, probably don't realise how much it influenced their decision. The cover is the first thing you see and you instantly make choices based upon it. You may find it interesting and pick it up to look closer, or it's layout will associate it with another product that you already have.

Well said, Miho. I also agree with Furn that it shows how much care is being put into the books.

Now for specifics...
I like some of the covers designed to look like books although it's being overdone. I like the covers of the Forgotten Realms and Rokugan lines. The Fiery Dragon cover design used for Of Sound Mind, Psionics Toolkit, Queen of Lies and Beyond All Reason is great (although the actual art varies in quality). I like the old fashioned 1e layout that Necromancer uses, especially the ones with the comic bookish artwork. The new Malhavoc cover design is great. Most of the Scarred lands covered are cool. I don't like the covers for any of the Troll Lords or most of the stuff from Fast Forward. Most of the other covers have made much of an impression on me either way.

 

[Ashtal]

When I see a good looking cover, I'm going to look at it more readily than a bad cover. A good cover can be something showing a group of characters doing something (like the cover for Exalted or Jadeclaw or AFMBE), or it can be iconic and suggestive (like Vampire, Mage or D&D).

But I won't buy a game based on the cover alone. It's got to be something I'm interested in, which I'll determine by the back cover blurb, the game contents, the artwork, all that stuff. It usually does give me a hint about the production values, the amount of graphic design attention it got, that sort of thing. Lots of squishy feelings, for sure.

Few covers outright turn me off, though I know them when I see them. More than anything, the cover sort of acts as a psychic call. Does it stir my imagination? Do I gape at it, and just enjoy it's beauty before even thinking to look at the back? Is the rest of the book going to enspell me the same?

It's so personal and quirky, though. "Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder" and all that jazz. I love Changeling, but I love the design too - the stain glass motif. Even if I hadn't know what Changling was going to be before it was released, I would have gravitated to the cover simply because it had stained glass. Same for the Amber Diceless cover. I had never read the books, but seeing the unique tarot cards and the fluid painting itself just drew me in to see what it was all about.

 

[Tharkun]

It's pretty important

I can't imagine having a extremely ugly cover (say neon blue/green/whatever). It should look professional not like a 4 year old drew it.

 

[Churchill]

Not really...

The cover is really unimportant to me in deciding if I will BUY a book. It does, however, have an impact on whether or not I pick up a book and look at it.

If something has a gorgeous cover (artworkally speaking), and is eye-catching, I'm more likely to notice it on a shelf.

Personally I think the covers on the Core Rulebooks are butt-ugly. But I bought those anyway.

For me, actually, it's the cover text rather than the artwork that will make me pick something up. If a rulebook or supplement "says" it will be appropriate for the game I'm playing in (or running), then I'm pretty apt to take a look.

That said, though, artwork seems to be a fairly accurate gauge of the overall quality of a product. If a company doesn't try to produce an "attractive" product, then it's often held true (in my experience) that the quality of the material in general probably won't be very good.

Your results may vary.