I’ve been lying to myself, all this time. I thought I didn’t judge books by covers — I thought I was drawn to a book, read the back of it for the description, flitted through the first few pages, and made an ABSOLUTELY UNBIASED decision to buy the book based on its merits.
Turns out, I’m a book-cover-judger. And I’ll wager that you are, too. I know this because I distinctly recall picking up this book, flipping through it, and putting it down. Multiple times. Yep, you read that right…I kept being drawn to this book, and didn’t actually commit to purchasing it until it HAD A PRETTIER COVER.
The hokey illustration and that title font? There was no way that book could be good.
The kicker? I looked the series True Blood up online, saw the books it came from, and committed my search again, because my results page *had* to be wrong. *That* series couldn’t come from *those* ugly books.
My husband also recalled having been interested in the books, but having put them down because the cover looked too much like a kid’s book. He didn’t want to read a young adult novel about vampires, he wanted the real deal, so the cover actively deterred his interest.
My point — which is being belabored, so thanks for reading — is that YOUR CLIENTS JUDGE BOOKS BY COVERS, TOO. You think they’ll see past bad design, an icky website, poor spelling, a pixelated image, a wonky menu, or a skewed message. But they won’t, and you can’t expect them to. The brain is hardwired to respond well to appealing design — or there would be no supermodels, no gorgeous Hollywood stars, no Macs, and no Swedish furniture.
So go on and take a good, hard look at your business ‘book cover’ — and make a plan to implement the ugly, wonky, or misleading bits as soon as possible.
).
SHOW COMMENTS HIDE COMMENTS 2 comments