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Somewhere in a dark cavern beneath the fantasy genre, a dragon emerged—not to terrorize kingdoms or hoard gold, but to star in the Photoshop nightmare that is Revenge of Minzrye. If you've ever wondered what happens when you let a dungeon intern design a book cover...
Every once in a while, a book cover floats across our desk looking like it was generated in a steampunk fever dream — and The Key by Alicia K. Aguirre is exactly that dream, only someone forgot to wake up and finish the design. Let’s begin with the key — the actual,...
Welcome to the tangled underbrush of fantasy cover design, where The Map by Sharon Robb-Chism plants its flag, lights it on fire, and then forgets where it put the matches. If this cover is meant to be our guide through an epic journey, someone needs to call...
If you’ve ever wondered what it would look like if a Lisa Frank folder collided with a fantasy novel generator and then exploded inside Photoshop, Whispers of the Elixir is your answer. It’s like someone tried to whisper magic into existence but accidentally shouted...
There’s epic fantasy, and then there’s Wings of Splendor, a cover that appears to have mistaken quantity for quality and spectacle for design. This isn’t a scene so much as a visual traffic jam, where every fantasy cliché showed up early, stayed late, and refused to...
If you’ve ever wondered what it would look like if a mannequin got possessed by a fire demon during a modelling gig in the Arctic, Witch’s Wrath has your answer. This cover is what happens when a magic spell is cast with only half a design budget and a full bottle of...
If you squint, Christmas at Silverberry Hall seems like a harmless holiday romance cover. But dare to look closer—no, really look—and what reveals itself isn’t festive cheer, but a digital collage stitched together like a haunted gingerbread house held by Elmer’s and...
Welcome to another entry in the swirling, glitter-strewn vortex of questionable design choices. Today’s offender: Lessons from the Beastly University Faculty, a cover that attempts “whimsical fantasy” but lands somewhere between AI-generated fever dream and...
Imagine a hacker thriller. Now imagine a patriotic memoir. Now imagine a small-town tech drama set inside a denim vortex. Smush them all together, sprinkle in some red-white-and-blue glitter, and you’ve got Born Again American: Megan—a cover so visually confused it...
There’s experimental, and then there’s Seven Stars by Kim Newman—a cover that looks like it crawled out of an early-2000s Photoshop tutorial, fell into a haunted scanner, and was resurrected as a warning to future designers. This is not a book cover. This is a design...
There’s minimalist design, and then there’s Artsy Rambler—a cover that says, “We had one photo and a dream… and stopped there.” This isn’t a book cover. It’s a vacation slideshow title slide wearing its Sunday best. It’s Paris, yes—but it’s Paris by way of PowerPoint...
Muscle Mastery promises to unlock “7 simple science-based steps to release the power within,” but the only thing getting released here is a visual cry for help. This isn’t muscle mastery—it’s a masterclass in motivational cover chaos, delivered with the unsettling...
A Note to Authors Featured Here
The purpose of Horrible Covers is not only to critique but also to highlight how much cover design matters to a book’s success. Many authors set out with the best intentions but end up with covers that don’t reflect the quality of their writing — sometimes because they tried to do it themselves, sometimes because they relied on someone who wasn’t a professional cover designer.
We understand how frustrating that can be.
Our aim is simple: to help writers put their best work forward with cover art that does justice to the story inside. If you’ve been featured here and are ready to level up your presentation, reach out through our contact form and mention “Horrible Covers Author.”