Do You Judge A Book By Its Cover?

Confession time: I 100% judge a book by its cover. When I scroll through the Libby app looking for my next read, the cover art has to capture my attention. The same goes for articles published here on Medium. If the featured image in my feed isn’t captivating, I’m on to the next story.

In all honesty, none of this makes any sense. After all, the cover or featured image alone is not an indicator of writing quality. Writers are often not visual designers. Yet, somewhere in my marketing-molded brain, I’ve been taught to equate attractive and captivating covers with quality. My guess is I’m not alone.

Like it or not, our cover art choices matter. Whether you’re self-publishing a book or publishing an article, you must spend time choosing the proper image or design. While Medium’s Unsplash integration makes finding photos easy, please don’t type “writing” in the search bar and go with the first option. Do you have any idea how often Jess and I see the same image of a fountain pen atop submissions?

Like it or not, finding the right image can make or break your writing. If you want eyes on your work, you need to spend a bit of time finding the right image or designing a catchy cover.

What do you consider when finding the right image or designing a cover?