Musing Monday...Don't Judge a Book By It's Cover.

Wow, another Monday already, the start of another week and time to head over and check out this week's Musing from Miz B at  at Should Be Reading.

This week’s musing asks…

Would you choose to review a book if its description sounded interesting but the cover was terrible?

You know, my first instinct is to say that yes, I am a shallow person and yes, covers are very important to me. As if that were a bad thing. After all, don't we say, don't judge a book by it's cover?
But that is wrong, isn't it?

Covers are meant to grab our attention, to help sell the book. Otherwise, publishers would just put books out with plain solid covers, just the title and the author's name. So there is nothing to be ashamed of, saying that covers effect us.
And sure a really nice cover may make me pick up a book and a really bad cover may make me walk by it. So many book...
If you walk into a book store..or even are just looking at ads for book online, something has to grabs us, make us pause for a minute. Maybe the title or the author is familiar. Maybe we have read a review. Maybe there is a blurb from another author we know. Or maybe there is a really striking cover. It is just the first step, to get our attention. But it is important. I think a bad cover can really hurt a book and perhaps, a really striking cover helps a book..a bit.

As far as books I review though, maybe not so much.
If I see a book that is being offered for review, I think the description, maybe an excerpt, is WAY more important. Unlike a bookstore, or even the library, there are a lot fewer choices being considered and probably every book get consideration. I would probably check out just about any book that sounds interesting, even if they showed no cover at all..Not that I think that happens, does it? I Google it, read descriptions, really try to see if this is something that would interest me. And honestly, for better or worse, the cover on a review copy is often not the final cover. Sometimes there is no cover art at all.

So, for buying, yes, a cover plays a slightly bigger role, at least in those very first minutes. In deciding whether to review a book, no, not so much.