Even though the author themselves might have absolutely nothing to do with the design of a book's front cover, they are a vital part of it.
When we purchase a book it becomes something extremely very personal to us. It can sometimes be unusual seeing a book you like with a different book cover, simply since it is not your book. This personalisation, and undoubtedly ownership, of books was at a completely different level at the dawning of the era of printing, with book covers being developed by the owners themselves, and what they believed would be the best books covers for the text. They would buy the book itself from the printer wrapped in paper, then bring it to a binder who would add in the covers to the client's specs. This normally suggested being clad in leather and then inscribed with the name of the book, and, more often than not, the name of the book's owner. People like the co-founder of the impact investor with a stake in World of Books can most likely value the ownership that individuals come to feel in regards to their books.
When you really consider it, it is quite remarkable that a book's cover, no matter how lovely it is, manages to stand so eloquently for something that is almost the complete antithesis of its art format-- writing in white and black. In fact, book covers have actually been created to reflect the emotional state of a book and attract its designated audience ever since the start of big scale publishing in the Victorian Period. Artists were tasked with discovering what makes a good book cover for certain people, or simply put, marketing. People like the CEO of the asset manager that has a stake in Amazon can most likely value the function of marketing in creating book covers.
We enjoy checking out books due to the fact that they are really lovely things. This holds true, however the nature of beauty that we might be speaking about is certainly different to what we might be talking about if we were talking about, say, the visual arts. Or is it? For as long as we have had books we have actually embellished them with beautiful book cover designs that attempt to mirror the beauty of what is within. This goes back for as long as the codex itself has actually been around, with middle ages monks, those charged with the defense and reproduction of the rare texts that might still be discovered, ornamenting each hand composed text with remarkably abundant and stunning styles. In fact, such was the charm held within these books that a lot of these creative book cover designs were carved into ivory or solid gold, studded with gems, and inlaid with rivers of precious metals. People like the co-CEO of the hedge fund that owns Waterstones can most likely value the manner in which the beauty of these book covers was developed to match the beauty within the book.