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I haven’t really considered before how big of a stone the saying ‘Don’t judge book by its cover’ was, aiming for publishers and marketers.

I think it’s actually very difficult to find a book, unless it’s a famous international bestseller with a few dozen of editions, where a cover would match the content. (And even then, if you look at the very first cover it was published under, it will probably make you shake your head. Like ‘Harry Potter’ covers… they are not bad, but after the 3rd one, I do believe they became too childish for the content.)

Just in these two months, I’ve seen good quality fantasy hidden behind badly photoshoped cheesy jackets with half-naked models that made me cringe; or on contrary, picked up something for it’s beautiful and sophisticated cover just to find tasteless PWP inside. It’s almost like you need to go from the contrary each time time try to chose a book. For example, a lot of YA books get beautiful hardcover editions and sprayed edges, because of the bookstagram movement that for some reason decided to focus on YA, but I’ve found out (after getting caught by the pretty editions a few times, I do love pretty books) most of them have hardly anything worth finding inside. And then, the best urban fantasy usually comes in cheap mass-marked editions with covers that are more likely to scare people off with their trashiness, and make me happy that in our country there’s a big culture of personal book covers to put on your books when reading outside…