Spill the Tea Tuesday: Judging a Book by its Cover

Don't judge a book by its cover! We've all heard that, and I'm sure a lot of us have said this at some point, too, but personally, I think this is terrible advice. I mean, let's be honest, we all judge books by their covers. How can we not? The cover is often the very first thing we see. If a cover is ugly or amateurish or confusing or hard to read, I'll keep scrolling (or strolling the aisles if I'm in an actual bookstore). Do I miss some good books because of this? Probably. But on the flip side, I've seen some absolutely gorgeous covers that make me stop and take notice. Then the blurb doesn't entice me or the story itself is just bad. 

Now, I realize this means I should take the above advice--don't judge a book by its cover--right? But again, no. Why? Because as an author, especially an Indie author, it's your job (my job) to create a cover that will grab a potential reader's attention. But my work doesn't stop there. I also need to ensure the blurb and the contents of the book are just as stellar. If my cover snags attention, I then need to guarantee my blurb will make that reader open to page one. And then I need to hook them enough to want to keep reading. 

So, while I agree we shouldn't judge the contents of a book by its cover, we absolutely need to use the cover as a tool to decide if it's something we want to invest our time and money in--two things a majority of people are in short supply of lately. 

You're probably wondering what prompted this post, so let me explain...

When I published my YA paranormal books (The Cursed Series), I hired a professional cover artist who I'd worked with before in various other capacities, and I truly adored her work. I gave her ideas of what I wanted, and she exceeded my expectations. 

I absolutely LOVE my covers, and when I'm at a book signing and have the entire series lined up on my table, I get so many compliments on the covers and how stunning they are--and how perfectly they all fit together from a series branding standpoint. And people really tend to love the colors, too.

But then I paid for a consultation from a successful author who reviewed my catalog and offered insight into how I could better brand and market my series in an effort to increase sales. Now, I learned a lot from this author, and I'm so glad I did the consult--it was definitely money well spent. However, one of her biggest "issues" was with my covers. She felt they didn't fit within the current market trends, didn't properly portray my genre and age category, and that, because the last book had an object as opposed to people, it didn't fit well with the rest of the series. 

I disagreed. Vehemently. 

And I refused to change my covers. 

Yes, a big part of this was sheer stubbornness on my part, but an equally big part was the cost of doing a total cover re-brand on seven books. I just didn't have the funds. Yet, I couldn't seem to shake her advice. Was she right? Did I need to re-do my covers? So, I do what I always do in this situation... I reached out to my trusted circle of friends and asked for their opinions. They all agreed that my covers were fine, and sales were steady. I let the advice go and kept going as I had been.

Recently, though, sales have stagnated. Not stopped, mind you, but I haven't really seen any increases, either. Can you guess where this is going?? LOL. 

For those of you who haven't seen today's social media posts, I'm finally taking the plunge and rebranding my Cursed Series. But not just the covers--the interior formatting, the editing, and the blurbs. Will this help boost sales? No idea, but it's worth a shot, right? 

My question for all of you readers: Do you judge books by their covers? How do you feel about authors switching out book covers like this--love it? Hate it? Don't really care? Drop your thoughts in the comments and let's spill some tea.