Abstract
Book covers, a communication means in which the boundaries between the ad, the package, and the product itself are nebulous, have received virtually no attention in research on communication effects. This paper addresses this void by examining one frequently employed cover design practice – the visual juxtaposition of sexually charged images, the book’s title and the author’s name. An experimental approach, involving two fiction books, showed that the presence of sexually charged cover images affected customers’ beliefs about the book content. The results also indicated that beliefs about sexual content contributed to a sense-making process involving emotions, attitudes, and intentions.