Cover story
A story by Helen Rumbelow in The Times uses a lot of expert opinion to confirm what book business professionals have suspected for a long time: that in the increasingly crowded shelves of bookstores, a good cover design is more important for clinching a sale than positive reviews and media coverage. Rumbelow argues that since many book purchases are impulse buys, consumers are likely to consider buying a book with a cover that both catches their eye and appeals to their sensibilities. One expert estimates that a book is perused by the consumer for an average of one and a half seconds, which doesn’t give the cover a lot of time to communicate the book’s worthiness. The article also looks at a number of authors whose backlists have been relaunched with new cover art, leading to a noticeable increase in sales.
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Read The Times article
