I’ve been mulling over cover options for my book for the past few days. I’ve gotten lots of feedback from people on cover #1 (see below), which has been useful in determining how that cover might be received. People who didn’t like it commented that the font (Garamond) looked too ordinary, that the image of the sprout wasn’t strong enough, and that overall the design looked too academic, like a textbook or a dissertation. One person even commented that they thought it looked like a self-published book.
My husband came up with cover #2 (see above) last night. With the use of the photograph, this design definitely has much more for the eyes to feast on, and is compositionally much more interesting. When I posted cover #2 online, people overwhelmingly responded to cover #2 more than cover #1.
The problem is, I personally still like the minimal quiet design of cover #1 better. I know that I should probably go with cover #2 if I want to sell more books. I should probably just get over it and do what’s better for the project, rather than indulging myself. I’m torn, what do I do?
Clara Lieu 
If the response is overwhelmingly for the 2nd one, you should just use that one. Your purpose is to have more readers, not to your own liking but with less readers. The 2nd one the layout is really good, quite attractive.