YOU CAN'T JUDGE A BOOK BY IT'S COVER!
...But that is exactly what most people do!
And it is
the reason that this saying exists. You do it... I do it... we all
do it! Think about it for a moment... if you see many different books all laid out on a sales
table, which book gets your attention first? Usually, it is the one
with the most interesting cover.
You may have written the most wonderful book, but unless you can
get someone to pick it up and thumb through it, they will never buy it
because they never had the chance to see it. Even nature teaches us
that flowers are bright and colorful to attract the bees for
pollinating.
Another old saying warns against being "penny wise and pound
foolish". So is the person that spends many hours writing a book
and many dollars to get it published, but decides to save some
money on the cover design by having a generic looking cover. You have not saved a thing if people ignore your book. Perhaps you
believe that it is not important, that the content is what really
matters.