InvidiaRed

I’m guessing everybody’s using the same generic open-source-art & slapping their title/name over top of it?

I think @Desiderius Price has the right of it. I was lucky enough to have a publisher who didn’t rely on basic open-source art or awkward renders, and the cover artist did an amazing job for me. After all, the cover is what catches the eye right away, and makes you want to pick up a book and read the blurb...

Hi, all.

Just an opinion from someone who can observe human behavior and isn’t in the business.

Sometimes, the publisher is “mailing it in on the cheap,” like @Desiderius Price has pointed out.  In other cases, they might be trying for something that was far more eye-catching in their minds than it is on the actual dust jacket or paperback binder.

In a rare few cases, the author themselves might be at least partly to blame.  A “new author” won’t have a lot of leverage to use against whatever the printer calls their “dust jacket department,” so they’ll get what they get and give thanks that they’re getting paid instead of printing through a “vanity house” and having to sell their books out of the trunk of their car for the next twenty years to get their money back. 

A “proven winner,” on the other hand, has a lot more leverage on what their dust jackets will look like, even for reprints of their initial best-sellers.  Some authors make good use of this leverage.  For others, they sell their books because of the story inside, in spite of the weak-sauce dust jacket or paperback cover.