Covers are kind of a big deal. Even as ebook sales increase, readers who browse bookstores and libraries are still a large part of the reading/buying audience. Even if the publisher does get the book placed in the new release stands at the front of the chain stores, or faced out in the regular shelves, a passing glance at the cover may be all the chance it gets to make a sale. Covers are also important for attracting the attention of the chain book buyers. They don’t give space or prominent placement to covers they don’t think will sell.
There are a lot of theories, and superstitions, about what makes a good book cover, like the superstition that having non-white characters prominently featured will cause the book to magically fail. This one has been offensive to writers and readers for a long time.
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If you’re a writer and you want to understand how publishing works, work in a bookstore. Brick and mortar bookstores are where the tires hit the pavement. Watching readers browse and how and why they buy books is a real education. (The whole system of browsing/shopping is something that eBooks have yet to figure out.) The bad news is, they do judge books by their covers. They also judge an entire book based on the first page — sometimes just the first paragraph. Authors know this. Authors also almost never get a say in what appears on their cover. (Unless it’s negotiated into their contract, and that almost never happens either. That’s a good thing, largely. Because most authors don’t know a damned thing about graphic design, let alone marketing.) Authors have no control on that aspect of things. That’s why getting a bad cover is so heartbreaking, particularly for a new author. I was lucky. Jeremy hired 
