Jen at Crazy for Books restarted her weekly Book Blogger Hop to help book bloggers connect with one another, but then couldn't continue, so she handed the hosting responsibilities off to Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The only requirements to participate in the Hop are to write and link a post answering the weekly question and then visit other blogs that are also participating to see if you like their blog and would like to follow them.
This week Billy asks: Does the cover of a book affect whether you are more willing to read it?
Not consciously, although I will reiterate something I have pointed out many times before: There is a wealth of research that establishes that humans are not aware of all of the factors that influence their decisions. People are biased in favor or or against certain things by factors that they do not recognize. Consequently, it is impossible to say for certain whether a book cover influences my desire to read a book, and I can only say that it doesn't usually consciously affect my decision-making.
I say this, because usually, by the time I get to a book, I have already determined I want to read it before seeing it. Generally, I choose books based upon who the author is, recommendations from sources I trust, and similar factors. By the time I actually get to a book, it has already gone through a process that led me to it in which the cover art was simply not a factor. That said, there is a reason that book publishers spend a fair amount of time, effort, and money on their art and design departments. If cover art didn't matter, they wouldn't bother.
All that said, when I have duplicate books that are in roughly equal condition, I almost always keep the one with the better cover and get rid of the other.
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