Book Covers and Genre

The truth is: there’s no way around it. We all judge books by their covers, whether analogously or literally. Our brains are hardwired to make snap judgements. In book-buying terms, our amygdala is designed to assess the gains or losses of each potential purchase. This happens within a matter of milliseconds.

Yes. We all judge books by their covers. Is that really such a bad thing?

The cover of a book has become one of the most essential ingredients in marketability, not least because it indicates genre. With the influence of BookTok and Bookstagram, genre is even more important now than ever. We have all these short, snappy videos about Horror, Crime, Fantasy, Smut, Fantasy Smut, Romantacy, Fairycore, Cozy Fantasy (in fact, there’s no shortage of fantasy sub-genres, but that’s an essay all on its own). They each occupy their own little corners of the virtual world, with their own dedicated influencers who are here to share their insights with us. When we see a book on the shelf, we can tell which part of TikTok it belongs to, which demographic will be speaking about it on camera. We make this judgement in the blink of an eye. This is how we decide. Bright pastel colours? romance. Serif fonts and creepy, ominous objects? Horror. Bold block lettering and dark photographic backgrounds? Crime.

It is our nature to take complex systems and break them down into their core components. Just look at all the sub-genres of fantasy. We like to know exactly what we’re buying. The art of the cover has been refined to almost minuscule detail, like the tiny stroke of an impressionist’s brush, to show us plainly which genre to expect before we even pick up the book and read the blurb.

So, should we judge books by their covers? Absolutely. Just think of that poor graphic designer who did all that hard work simply for people to say it doesn’t mean a thing.

Go to your local bookshop and judge those books at a glance. Nobody’s stopping you.