"We're all taught never to judge a book by its cover. Most of us ignore this advice." says this entry on the TV Tropes wiki, which describes the "Contemptible Cover", or the extensive use of book covers as marketing gimmicks. One bit on the page that really got my attention was the supposed addition of Harry Potter copies with more "adult" covers so that adult fans wouldn't have to feel embarrassed about reading a "kiddy book". This entry got me thinking: Can the cover of the book actually change one's perception of the actual content of the book? Covers can indeed make a first impression. When I heard from this entry that someone had bound and published several articles of Wikipedia on hard copy, I didn't believe it until I saw the cover of the book, which, as I mentioned in my dissertation on this book, had a professional look and feel that clashed with the informal atmosphere the "real" Wikipedia is (in)famous for.

But when it comes to whether a cover can change one's outlook on a book, I say, in most cases, no. There's a very good reason why we're told never to judge a book by its cover, and it's because it's the text inside that is really telling the story, not the cover. Having said that, however, a book with an attractive cover never hurts.