Naked books???

An article I found on Huffpost Books of an article from the Indie Reader.

Here's the link...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/22/are-books-as-sexy-without_n_976518.html

The title, Are books sexy without covers? The article discusses the wave of e-books and if books without fancy covers or any covers at all is the next big wave.

From the article...

Donna Miller, a renaissance figure when it comes to the book industry, conducted a random sample of about 100 teens regarding cover and what she found surprised her. Only 18 percent considered the cover the most important factor in selecting a book to read. What had more weight were the book summary and recommendations of friends and librarians.

I find this limited study of teens very odd because they are so visually oriented. They are the single biggest buyer of games and comics...

Here are some figures from the article that I found concerning ebook sales as well...

Ebooks sales spiked more than 145 percent last July. (Summer reading crowd?)

in 2009 nearly 765,000 titles were self-published in the U.S., an increase of 181 percent over the previous year.

I read this number back in 2010 and that article stated there were about 250,000 commercially published books, so this is a 3 to 1 ratio and I think it is only growing...

So what are you feelings concerning covers for ebooks? Is it an expense for the self publisher can co away with, or are they taking a bigger chance in doing away with decent cover design?

Me, I still want them...

I remember lots of SF&F books in which interior illustrations were also part of the art work of a book, mostly pen and ink type.

Still, that is not to say the covers or interior drawings are all I cared about. If the story did not interest me, or the writing was not to my preference, then I would pass.

I would love to see ebooks do the same, but for a self published author, the expense might be too much...

I do feel covers will always be needed. They need not be elaborate pieces of art, but they do have to be well thought out, eye catching and should be representative of what the story is about.

A blank cover with title and author name just does not get my attention unless someone has pointed me to the book with a great review or personal reference.