You know the saying: don’t judge a book by its cover. But we all do it, just like we judge movies and games and albums and magazines by their covers. A book’s cover design tells the reader what to expect from the book in more ways than showing what the book’s about. A well-designed cover communicates to the reader that the author and publisher care enough about the book that they invested in a beautiful and inspiring cover. It also acts as a signal for the book’s intended audience, getting the book into those readers’ hands.
A book’s cover is what makes it stand out on the shelf or among the search results on an e-reader’s screen.