SPECIAL FEATURE: The Covers of S M Mala

You’ve never seen me do this before. Either I’ll space out a single author’s covers, or, if they’re noteworthy in their lousiness, I might run a series for a day or two.  But these… I really think they need to be experienced all together to truly appreciate them.

The author’s book Good Vibration has been featured previously; it has since gotten a new cover…

…in order to, um, “brand” it with the author’s other offerings:

Bitter Sweet Kisses

The Secret History of Hatty Ha Ha … begins

What he did to her

Her Bleeding Heart

Bless This Love

Pushing over 40

Happy Now?

Hot Flush

Relative Strangers

My mother in law’s lover

Hard to Love

The Secret History of Hatty Ha Ha … ends

Bad Advice

Trust Me

The Problem of Getting Rich Quik … part one

The Problem of Getting Rich Quik … part two

And these are not merely thousand-word short-shorts, dashed off in an afternoon with a cover to match.  If Amazon’s estimated page length for Kindle books is to be believed, the shortest of the novels above clocks in at 256 pages, with the longest tipping the scales at 971 (!) pages.  What you see above, then, represents a whopping 9,366 pages (!!) of fiction… and yet that investment of time is presented to the world with these covers.

I honestly don’t know what to make of this.

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Ericb
Ericb
7 years ago

It’s like ambient bad covers.

Dave Williams
7 years ago

Well, at least they, er, have, um, stylistic consistency.

Naaman Brown
Naaman Brown
7 years ago
Reply to  Dave Williams

With consistent branding like that, you learn what to be on the look out for.

red
red
7 years ago

That first one needs a “Major Award” seal of approval sticker.

Hitch
7 years ago

Don’t review until you see the Whites of her i’s.

Hitch

Naaman Brown
Naaman Brown
7 years ago

What’s “Hard to LOVE” about orange? (Go U.T. Vols! Yeehaw!!)

Ahem. To someone not familiar with the author’s work, that’s a bunch of sheety covers. Not a good intro and I never read or heard of the author.

Tuula
Tuula
7 years ago
Reply to  Naaman Brown

Maybe it is the orange itself that is having emotional issues?

RK
RK
7 years ago

“…and now for another book featuring jokes about mattress tags!”

katz
7 years ago

jfc, he couldn’t even iron his sheet.

John Yeo Jr.
7 years ago

That was a very entertaining slide show. Have you thought about featuring a new series of scathingly bad covers every season? Perhaps S M Mala could win the inaugural “LOUSY BOOK COVERS CERTIFICATE OF DISTINCTION”, given every year as a lifetime achievement award for poorly thought-of covers. Hell, it might be the only real award some of these guys might win!

Naaman Brown
Naaman Brown
7 years ago

To do my impression of River Tam from Firefly: “Mala … bad … in Latin.” (Mala’s covers, not the person, mind you.)

Hitch
7 years ago
Reply to  Naaman Brown

Downright Creepifying. 🙂

David
7 years ago

I keep seeing this crappy covers in emails offering the books for reduced price or free, I forget. The author writes a book, photographs a random object on his bedsheet and adds text that is hardly readable and thinks it’s acceptable? I wonder if he/she ever sold a book? Maybe only if a person ignored the cover. Worst series of covers ever.

Naaman Brown
Naaman Brown
7 years ago
Reply to  David

There was a author whose covers looked like household bric-a-brac arranged on the sofa.

red
red
7 years ago

The only cliche missing in this series of titles is “that’s what SHE said”