Having said that, I don’t know if we’ve improved all that much. Teri Jacobs said she never got to have a say in what covers her books would have (luckily THE VOID was an awesome book with a cool cover). A lot of Pahlaniuk’s covers–like RANT–don’t do his books justice.

I think Rick McCammon’s covers are great, they’ve got a signature look about them. Stephen King’s books seem to change covers every year, which may not be a bad thing.
MEAT has one of the best covers I’ve seen in a while.

I just wonder what goes through some publisher’s mind when they design covers. I wrote this nonfiction sex guide, and had designed what I thought was a great cover: an infrared photo of two lovers embracing…the publisher opted to discard it and just use a photo of me. Flattering, but not all that practical.

Sometimes I’m tempted to keep self-publishing just because it’s the only way to create the cover I want…

Beast Witches, K.K.

While I am sure that there are many avid readers out there (myself included) who purchase books, based off of the summary on the back, rather than the on the cover, you are right in saying that the cover sells the books. (I have noticed people in bookstores who pick up eye-catching covers as opposed to rather bland looking ones)

I, for one, enjoy the simplicity in covers (for instance Richard Laymon novels)