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Somewhere between a wellness app ad and a failed UX workshop lies Calm the Noise—a book cover so visually conflicted, it should come with its own push notification warning:“This design is attempting to do too much. Please force quit.” Let’s begin with the word NOISE,...
All rise for the sentencing of Lawyer Humor Handbook—a cover so aggressively bland it should be fined for misrepresentation of comedy. This is the literary equivalent of a forced smile at a deposition, and the design has the visual charisma of a parking citation....
Once upon a time in a land of inconsistent branding, a legal professional set out to write a book about wealth. What emerged was Wealthy Ever After—a cover that looks like a Disney princess wandered into a financial planning seminar and stayed just long enough to...
Get ready to flex your disbelief, because today’s disasterpiece is brought to you by the number 3—and the design team that clearly gave up after it. Welcome to the shiny, shirtless chaos that is The 3 by Steve Hochman, a cover that raises many questions and answers...
Today we gather ‘round the flickering lantern of bad design to mourn yet another Southern Gothic cover dragged down by the ghost of Microsoft Paint past. The Wretched and Undone promises haunted intensity, literary depth, and backwoods trauma—but instead delivers the...
There’s genre-bending, and then there’s You Are Summoned, a cover so wildly confused about its own identity that it looks like it was designed by a committee of wizards, interns, and one guy who thought this was an ad for a new phone app. This isn’t a portal...
Welcome to a masterclass in how to take a culturally rich, visually iconic subculture… and package it like a middle school social studies textbook on municipal government. This is Everything You Need to Know About The Goth Scene, and this cover has somehow captured...
Let us now pay tribute to a cover that dares to ask: What if we took a cat, a human, and your ability to sleep peacefully ever again—and merged them into one terrifying jpeg? Presenting: The Instrumentality of Mankind by Cordwainer Smith, lovingly defaced by the...
If you’ve ever wondered what it would look like if a middle school book report got possessed by a SyFy Channel marathon, Zombie Raccoons & Killer Bunnies is here to answer that question—with fangs, glowing eyes, and absolutely zero restraint. Let’s start with the...
Let’s take a moment to honor one of the most tone-deaf cover designs in publishing history—a cover so visually awkward, so mismatched in tone and execution, that it practically demands to be archived in the Museum of Uncomfortable Graphic Design. Ladies and gentlemen,...
Beam us up, because this cover has officially left Earth’s atmosphere—and also any known rules of design. Ashtar: A Tribute – Revealing His Secret Identity isn’t just a book title. It’s a cosmic cry for help wrapped in a galactic coloring book fever dream. Let’s start...
Sound the alarm and grab your diving bell—we’ve officially sunk to new depths. Submarine Jim, the fourth (!) installment in The Longfellow Adventures, boldly goes where no design sensibility has gone before: straight to the bottom of the ocean and face-first into the...
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.”