Thanks for your reply – and yes, I agree they are different measures, hopefully both of value. (Most of my respondents are UK-based which might also be an influence)

That’s an interesting survey RJ, thanks for sharing. At first glance I was a bit surprised that the covers weren’t a big percentage but I have a feeling I know why. The question you’re asking in that survey is a bit different and thus those results are a bit misleading if you try to apply them to the same thing we’re talking about here. What I mean is, you’re asking readers what makes them buy a book from all the info on the product page – which means that they’ve already landed on the book itself. From that perspective, I think your results are probably pretty accurate – if anything, I’m surprised that the cover answers are even as high as they are because once you have access to all that other info, the cover should matter a lot less. You can read the blurb, click the look inside, read the review comments, etc. But the issue we’re talking about more specifically in this article is driving people to that product page in the first place. To do that, you are relying on what the reader has access to at that point, and for the most part, that’s just the cover. They can’t read the blurb or review comments, or click the look inside, unless they’ve actually gotten to the product page. So it’s the cover that drives them to give the book a chance and look at the rest of the info, but once they have made that decision, the cover itself should factor less in whether they actually make the purchase.