Here lies A Deep, Enduring Reverie, Book Three of the Druid Saga — a title so full of promise, and a cover so devoid of personality it could be used to calm hyperactive toddlers or accompany the credits of a corporate wellness video.
Let’s start with the image — a peaceful, misty forest scene with a waterfall trickling through ancient trees. It’s tranquil, moody, possibly magical… and absolutely smothered to death by the white-barred sandwich of death. It’s like someone took a decent piece of art and said, “Hmm, this is too immersive. Let’s crush it between two thick slabs of Word Doc energy until the reader forgets what genre this even is.”
The top bar introduces us to the title in a typeface so generic it might as well be called Times New Medieval. There’s no texture, no shadow, no integration — just floating text, centered like a sad job application heading. Beneath the artwork, we get that bold declaration:
BOOK THREE OF THE DRUID SAGA
…in case the total lack of druids, saga, or drama on the cover didn’t clue you in. It’s a line so dry and lifeless it could’ve been copy-pasted from a bullet point in someone’s publishing spreadsheet.
And finally, we reach the great black bar at the bottom. Author name in full-caps serif font, centered like a tombstone engraving. There’s no visual relationship to anything above it — it’s just there. Like a label. Like someone was uploading a draft to KDP and forgot to hit “customize layout.” This isn’t a fantasy novel. It’s a book-shaped object.
Nowhere on this cover is there any indication that this is part of a magical saga. No glowing runes. No mysterious figures. No enchanted trees or symbols. Just a rectangle, some text, and an image that’s been jammed into a layout so bland it could be a poetry collection, a travelogue, or a user manual for calming crystals.
It’s the self-publishing equivalent of an unbuttered cracker.
This cover doesn’t whisper fantasy. It whispers, “I printed this at Staples on my lunch break.” It’s not just a missed opportunity — it’s a full-on design shrug.
If A Deep, Enduring Reverie is a journey into the mystical unknown, then its cover is a deep, enduring sigh from every fantasy reader who hoped for even one druid to show up on the page. Or at least the cover. Or at least… something.