I think there are some fundamental differences between us (no, really?) that lead to this:
(1) We read different types of book.
In the genres I read - primarily romance and crime fiction, although also SFF - the plots are generic. Consider romance. The covers of almost all romantic novels depict a man and a woman embracing. I knew before I started the book that there would be a man and woman embracing. Whether the picture depicts a dark man and a blonde woman is not going to affect my decision, because (i) I don't choose romances based on hair, and (ii) the hair colour on the cover is not necessarily an accurate depiction of the characters - in fact, it is likely not to be.
It is eminently possible that for literary fiction or general non-fiction, the cover conveys meaningful information about the book. I hardly read in either of those genres so I'm not equipped to comment.
(2) We choose what to read in different ways.
You (appear to) like a wide range of books. You (appear to) look for books that are in some ways different from what you have read before. It is eminently possible that book covers help you to glean information that helps you make useful decisions, and it is eminently possible that if I too were looking for a range of new books, then the cover would convey information to me (although I think it's unlikely - see below).
I am basically looking for books that are as like as possible to the books I already read. I'd estimate that about 70% of my reading is rereads. Of the rest, about 80% of new books that I read come from recommendations from Virginia or Ros.
I look for new books in two ways. One is by browsing Amazon reading cover descriptions. (I think it's possible that they display thumbnail cover art, but it's too small to see clearly.) The other is by browsing bookstores, and I think it is eminently possible that spine colours or typefaces draw my attention, so if you are counting this as part of cover art then you're right. In essence, though, what I am doing is pattern matching against previous books that I have read and cover art doesn't convey any information about similarity to previous books that I have read, perhaps because (1). Only the blurb, and ideally a look inside the pages, will do that.
(3) We take in information in different ways.
I don't notice visual things. You know this. I think you are genuinely not comparing like with like because you assume that I observe all the information on the book cover that you do. But I don't. white_hart asked if I am not given book cover information on Amazon, and it turns out that the answer is that I don't know. If it is there, then I don't see it. I can't use information to inform my judgments about something if I don't actually see it. As per (1), this might be different if I had a reason to believe that cover art conveyed information to me about the book.
(4) We have different views about what the cover conveys.
I think it's possible that this is a direct consequence of (1). This might be as simple as "you read books where the cover conveys information and I don't". But all of the above, although true, is arguably irrelevant, because the bottom line is that I don't believe that the cover tells me anything of value about the book. I just can't get past the idea that the cover could be anything, anything at all. The same book could have a completely different cover, but what's inside it would still be the same. That's not true of the blurb. There is variation in blurb, and I'm sure I'm sometimes pulled by blurb into books I don't like or away from books that I would have. But ultimately if I'm reading crime fiction then the blurb is going to tell me it's crime fiction. It will give me some more details that will help me judge whether this book is my cup of tea, through my pattern matching process. Is it set in Scandinavia? Is there a romantic sub-plot? How much blood is there going to be? The cover will either tell me generically that it's crime fiction - which I knew - or it won't tell me anything at all.
I hear you when you say "The cover tells me a lot: it sends all sorts of signals." I'm sure that's true for you and I'm sure it works. But I literally cannot imagine what those signals might be.
no subject
(1) We read different types of book.
In the genres I read - primarily romance and crime fiction, although also SFF - the plots are generic. Consider romance. The covers of almost all romantic novels depict a man and a woman embracing. I knew before I started the book that there would be a man and woman embracing. Whether the picture depicts a dark man and a blonde woman is not going to affect my decision, because (i) I don't choose romances based on hair, and (ii) the hair colour on the cover is not necessarily an accurate depiction of the characters - in fact, it is likely not to be.
It is eminently possible that for literary fiction or general non-fiction, the cover conveys meaningful information about the book. I hardly read in either of those genres so I'm not equipped to comment.
(2) We choose what to read in different ways.
You (appear to) like a wide range of books. You (appear to) look for books that are in some ways different from what you have read before. It is eminently possible that book covers help you to glean information that helps you make useful decisions, and it is eminently possible that if I too were looking for a range of new books, then the cover would convey information to me (although I think it's unlikely - see below).
I am basically looking for books that are as like as possible to the books I already read. I'd estimate that about 70% of my reading is rereads. Of the rest, about 80% of new books that I read come from recommendations from Virginia or Ros.
I look for new books in two ways. One is by browsing Amazon reading cover descriptions. (I think it's possible that they display thumbnail cover art, but it's too small to see clearly.) The other is by browsing bookstores, and I think it is eminently possible that spine colours or typefaces draw my attention, so if you are counting this as part of cover art then you're right. In essence, though, what I am doing is pattern matching against previous books that I have read and cover art doesn't convey any information about similarity to previous books that I have read, perhaps because (1). Only the blurb, and ideally a look inside the pages, will do that.
(3) We take in information in different ways.
I don't notice visual things. You know this. I think you are genuinely not comparing like with like because you assume that I observe all the information on the book cover that you do. But I don't.
(4) We have different views about what the cover conveys.
I think it's possible that this is a direct consequence of (1). This might be as simple as "you read books where the cover conveys information and I don't". But all of the above, although true, is arguably irrelevant, because the bottom line is that I don't believe that the cover tells me anything of value about the book. I just can't get past the idea that the cover could be anything, anything at all. The same book could have a completely different cover, but what's inside it would still be the same. That's not true of the blurb. There is variation in blurb, and I'm sure I'm sometimes pulled by blurb into books I don't like or away from books that I would have. But ultimately if I'm reading crime fiction then the blurb is going to tell me it's crime fiction. It will give me some more details that will help me judge whether this book is my cup of tea, through my pattern matching process. Is it set in Scandinavia? Is there a romantic sub-plot? How much blood is there going to be? The cover will either tell me generically that it's crime fiction - which I knew - or it won't tell me anything at all.
I hear you when you say "The cover tells me a lot: it sends all sorts of signals." I'm sure that's true for you and I'm sure it works. But I literally cannot imagine what those signals might be.