26 September 2024

We all know we’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but that doesn’t mean we can’t pick one up because of it, right? Given the time and attention that goes into design, providing mini works of art to display on our shelves, covers certainly deserve recognition for the significant role they play in driving book purchases, so let’s dig into the stats behind the covers.

According to our Books & Consumers survey, in the 12 months to May 2024, 13% of book purchases in the UK were influenced by the front cover, rising to 15% of print books, 18% of impulse buys, 19% of in-store purchases and 30% of books discovered via physical shops. Children’s books see the highest share bought because of the cover, particularly activity books, annuals, picture books and general interest non-fiction, and they’re joined by more visual areas of adult non-fiction, like handicrafts, art & photography and nature books. The fiction genre that looks to benefit the most from front covers catching the eye is sagas, perhaps pointing to how recognisable a saga cover is, with romance and historical fiction also above the overall market stat.

Front covers can grab the initial attention of consumers, but they also work together with other factors to get books to the till. Across fiction, non-fiction and children’s, the description and reading an extract/looking inside are stronger influences for books bought for the cover compared to overall purchases, with subject, price and bestseller status also having more sway. Author and series take a step back, and in fiction, so do characters, but in children’s the characters overlap a bit more with front cover. Recommendations/reviews and gift requests are also less impactful, and bringing all of that together makes a lot of sense: when browsing, there’s a lot of dependence on things like the cover, blurb and looking through the book, whereas consumers who are buying an author/series they’ve read before or buying because of a recommendation/review/gift already have that intent and aren’t as dependent on the initial impressions.

But we can also look at this on an author level, and it’s interesting to see which have had a high share of their purchases attributed to the front cover. Among those that we have a large enough sample to look at in the three rolling years to May 2024, 20 names have had at least 20% of purchases influenced by the front cover, rising all the way up to a third of Alexandra Potter books. Making it even more interesting, we can compare that to the author and series influence as well, shown below. For more than half, the front cover was more impactful than the author or series, with Bella Mackie showing the biggest cover vs author difference – a prominent title like How to Kill Your Family is certainly going to catch some eyes! (And similarly, two of the authors in this list have books with f*ck in the title, which surely can grab plenty of attention.) There’s also the ever-present social media connection, with authors like Kathleen Glasgow, Ali Hazelwood and Adam Silvera among those getting a TikTok boost in recent years, leading to more visibility for the front covers, whether in videos or in shops.

On the other hand, we have a selection of children’s & YA authors who over-index when it comes to the front cover but are still more series-driven, like Fiona Watt, Liz Braswell, Eric Hill and Jill Murphy, as well as a couple of non-fiction names dominated by the author influence, David Attenborough and Max Hastings. The closest race between the three influences can be seen in books by Beatrix Potter and Tom Fletcher, although series pulls ahead for the former and author for the latter.

That goes to show that even when you have a big name or classic series, the front cover is still important for getting those books to stand out, alongside bringing readers to books or authors they may not have heard of before. So no to judging books by the covers, but yes to buying because of them!

Based on data from the Nielsen BookData Books & Consumers survey, to May 2024. Starting from 2012, our robust consumer data allows for individual analysis of over 1,000 authors, with even more names available to group together, providing valuable insight into target audiences. Please contact infobookresearch@nielseniq.com for more information.