Does a book cover help you make a decision on reading/buying it?

I have bought a few books over the years solely because the book cover was pretty... and have also missed out on a couple of good books because I judged the covers. I am curious on what makes you buy/leave & read a book based on covers alone!

i would like to say no, but have to be honest and say the cover design does play a large part in the decision for me, unless it's a very pre established or significant book (take something like 1984 or Dune). though I do like to read the backs too! haven't been book shopping in a while but I usually would only look at the back of book if the cover looked polished to me

I am the type to judge a book by its title more than its cover. At the same time, with how many books get in my hands everyday, I do read the back of most of them, so I don’t have a choice in being open minded. I kinda recognize now what type of book cover have stories that interests me, though I do get surprised some times.

Not for me, really. I actually search for the books I truly want and if they look pretty, well then that's just a grand bonus! 

for all that i am for "don't judge a book by it's cover", a good cover DOES help catch my attention. i've discovered one of my favorite book series (and author) because of the beautiful art that was used for the covers. i'm certain i would've completely overlooked it if it hadn't been for that.

I dont read a lot but from my experience it depends

on the one hand ive bought a book before cuz of the cover and then the book has basically nothing to do with the cover and is boring but then I have also gotten books (notably graphic novels) solely based on the cover and they have become my favorite series (for example the Animorphs graphic novel i bought years ago when i was in middle school at a book fair)

If there's stuff i like on the cover, (alienz, dragonz, gunz, motorcyclez, cool stuff), it does give me things to expect to see in the book

Honestly yeah, especially since ai is so common now but it gives a good idea on the book and its context so why not 

i can buy a book cuz its got a pretty cover (but it has to be interesting too!!) but i wont pass on a book just because it looks boring

and ofc id never buy a book with an ai cover 

the only reason why i would decide to not buy a book cuz of the cover is only if it is made with AI, normally i just read the back of the book to see if it has my interests but if i see an AI cover im not buying it even if it sounds like the best piece of literature i could read in my entire life cuz if they made the cover with AI the book itself will also have AI and i despise that slop 

I’ve become an audiobook reader and I almost exclusively use the library, so lately I would only buy a book if it was either niche enough that I couldn’t get it from my library, or if it has a beautiful cover! I still really want a vintage copy of flowers in the attic, I scour value village every time I go. I ought to start collecting old bodice rippers. I love pulp illustration and I wish the trends of cover design veered that way again, I find things tend towards boring or just ugly right now. Especially romance novels, they’re hideous. 

Nah, I wait for other people to tell me a book is good and then I read it.

yes and no. i usually judge based on whether i find the blurb on the back interesting enough, but sometimes i look at a cover and just immediately put it down without checking lol (bad habit..)

but if it's just blatantly an AI cover i REFUSE to read it

Oh my god yes yes yes yes, I will not pick up a book that has a shit cover. I only read 1984 because my friend insisted it was absolutely amazing and a classic that everyone has to read at least once, otherwise i would've never read it because the cover seemed so uninteresting to me, I saw the 1984 spanish translated coover and it look 10000x better than whatever tf the english one is which was a bummer because i actually thing 1984 is an amazing book that deserves an amazing cover. In summary yeah the cover is so important 

Not really. I don't buy books to look at them, I read them, then put them away. It's different when it comes to coffee table books of course, because in that case, yeah the cover will matter.

i was going to say no but then saw some good points about ai being used......if a cover seemed like ai then yeah i would not trust the book being worth my time!!! and i think there are some art styles for covers that are lame and boring, and in my experience books with those styles haven't been very good.....but i really do try to depend on the summary, bcuz i think that's what matters most!