Next Generation Authors discussion

I was thinking, and I've discussed this with Rachel before- so when is it okay to judge a book by its cover? And do we ever?
Personally, it's definitely true for me that most of the books i like do have amazing covers, and more popular books generally have better covers. an example is LOTR, loved for over 50 years.
Are there any books that you love that have terrible covers? Or do you ever prefer the first or an earlier version of the cover to the current ones now?
There are definitely exceptions, however. I can't talk for the Fallen series, but they have great covers, but apparently bad stories.
What do you guys think?

This conversation, we've had it on many an occasion! XD
I think it's only normal to judge a book by its cover unless someone tells me otherwise.
I love every incarnation of LOTR and the Hobbit!
I love Trudi Canavan's new covers for her books, especially the Rogue.
I think David Edding's books were a pleasant surprise, their covers aren't great, but I love the story :)

yes, and like you said about the Obernewtyn covers, the old ones were better. personally, i like the new ones because they're more attractive :)

But the old ones are 'Damazing' ! ;)

I judge most non-fiction books by their covers. When I browse the business / entrepreneurship section, I try and avoid the books that sounds like they're trying to oversell themselves. I think the title, perhaps a subtitle, is sufficient to tell me to open or put it back on the shelf.

For fiction, I generally ignore the cover, and flip it over to the back to find out what the story is about.

For how-to books, I might just flip right inside and see what they have to teach.

Usually, a book has to catch my eye, and when it does, I read the blurb, and if the plot reaches some sort of interest to me, I buy the book.

I don't JUDGE, but I tend to be attracted (obviously) to books with more alluring covers than the inverse case. I'm a very aesthetic person, so it's sort of natural for me, as well as for many other people I assume. But I don't think you should judge the content of a book by it's cover. Some novels just have terrible designers, and it's too bad if the novel itself is great but is presented with a terrible face. Yet I'll stray a bit from the question and say this: covers, and the overall exterior design of a book, are more important than some people think. What I've noticed a lot in YA fiction is that the covers very rarely reflect the story of the book. Often it's just a case of Photoshopping girls with wind-blown hair through a tainted filter and then adding lots of glitter to it, to make it 'attractive' to teens. But such covers don't bring the book justice, they don't even represent the characters properly, and I think people should concentrate more on giving books a cover that really represents what the story stands for, and that has a bit of thought behind it's creation.

Here's a video that I love and that explains the idea better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC0KxN...

Considering I just don’t read Non-Fiction [Unless it’s about space and our universe] I don’t tend to go to the Non-Fiction aisle. I usually go to the fiction aisles and check for fantasy novels. Now, I don’t judge a book and say, ‘Oh, that looks so boring’, no. It’s just that if your book has a nice cover, I’ll more likely be drawn to it, and give it more of a chance for me to purchase it. Also, if a cover intrigues me, I read the title, which might also tell me something about the story. But considering many book titles are symbolic, (or something like that) I read the blurb, and if that’s too vague, the first chapter. If a book doesn’t catch my interest by the first ten - twenty pages, I drop it and move on. Which is why the Kindle and it’s book samples are really useful in this case.