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The Trojan Horse may have been history’s greatest trick, but this book cover is modern graphic design’s greatest tragedy. The Trojan Treasure Conspiracy rides into view looking less like a thrilling archaeological adventure and more like a Photoshop workshop final...
Here it is — Food Crazy Mind, a book cover that screams “I help people with emotional eating” while visually resembling a flyer for a broken vending machine hotline. This isn’t just a cover. It’s a visual panic attack in yellow — the kind of design that makes your...
Some people trim trees for the holidays. Others trim their sense of shame, as demonstrated in the cover for Christmas with the Silverfox Billionaires, a design so aggressively absurd it might just be a Hallmark movie’s evil twin. This is not a cover. This is a stock...
There’s decorative. And then there’s Grace & Favour, a cover that took one look at restraint and said, “Absolutely not, bring me more filigree.” What we have here is less book design and more gilded vector bedlam, like someone tried to turn a wedding invitation...
If you’ve ever wondered what it would look like if a haunted doll commercial and an AI-generated fever dream got mashed together in a back alley of Photoshop, Deadly Gamble has your answer — and it's not looking good for the genre. Let’s begin with the child...
This cover arrives in an electric, retina-stripping green so bright it could guide lost ships to shore. If colors had personalities, this one would be an overcaffeinated highlighter screaming, “LOOK AT ME!” And you know what? You do look at it — and instantly regret...
Ah yes, “Keeping His Omega Brother” — a title that dares you to say it out loud in public and then dares your eyes to survive the visual fallout. This cover isn’t just a misstep; it’s a full interpretive dance of design failure set against the largest moon humanity...
“Deadly Village”? More like Design Disaster in the Cul-de-Sac. This cover is a crime scene — not for what lies between the pages, but for what happened on the front. Let’s start with our leading lady, who appears to be strolling through a charming English village,...
Nothing says “small town charm” quite like a digitally generated demigod with the suspiciously waxy sheen of an AI dream boy who just woke up flawless at the golden hour. Welcome to Once Upon a Small Town Secret, where the biggest secret isn’t what’s in the story —...
If you’ve ever wondered what happens when three completely unrelated images meet in a dark alley and get duct-taped together in Photoshop with the smudge tool set to “vengeful,” feast your eyes on Still Burning by Abbi Glines. Because this cover isn’t just still...
This cover is not just decking the halls—it’s burning the whole design curriculum down in a pine-scented blaze of fonts, crocodiles, and Christmas confusion. The Chapel at the Pines is here to answer the question no one asked: What if a Hallmark holiday painting...
Buckle up, space travelers, because we are crash-landing into the graphic design black hole that is Those Alien Skies. This cover didn’t just boldly go where no designer should ever go—it hit the warp drive on every cliché, then slammed into an asteroid of bad...
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.”