Hey, all you haters!

Jayzus, people, it’s the internet! You put something here for all the world to see, they’re gonna see it. Some people will like it, some won’t. It’s the risk you take with any public showing. some people hate Dali paintings, I happen to like them. Neither of those facts changes that they’re each worth something like in the millions.

And again, I’ll say that LBC.com isn’t the only site on the web that calls out crappy cover design. There are at least several. Hell, even Amazon reviewers have been known to criticize covers.

So I wish these poor woe-is-me saps would stop hating on us for providing a valuable public service in this age of “even the thumbless dog can publish his own book.”

One last comment and you will hear from me no more. I know, I know, don’t tear up. I did hire a professional cover designer, one highly recommended, but no matter how I tried to guide him, we just couldn’t find common ground. My writing in extremely dark, even horrific, and his cover attempts were simply too beautiful and did not reflect this. I paid him (handsomely) for his time, as he truly did try, but I came to realize that if I wanted it done to my liking, I would have to do it myself. I love my cover. I LOVE my cover. It’s exactly how I envisioned it. I am under no illusions that everyone else will love it as much as I do. My dearest Karl, I cannot tell you how very wrong you are. To a true writer, their novels ARE living, breathing entities. I have given birth four times over, and trust me when I say, my novels were the most difficult labors of all. If nothing else, I’m hoping my posts will encourage those on this site to find more positive forums to voice their opinions. “Snark” is hurtful. There are other ways to point out another’s flaws that are more constructive. And no BOO-ring and WTF, is not it. Best of luck to you all, and may your lives be filled with love and positivity.

I for one am glad of this site. While browsing the covers featured here, some of which deserved to be here more than others, I found books that I otherwise never would have stumbled upon. Several have been purchased each payday.

But the very best part is the authors who show up enraged that anyone DARE to criticize their precious cover. I wouldn’t want to see how these unprofessional people would react to being told that their writing sucks. Thanks to those wonderful outbursts, I have saved money because I will NEVER buy a book to support an author who can’t take any form of criticism, and I especially don’t want to buy a book from someone who thinks that a book can be equated to a living, breathing child.

I’ve always valued this site because it’s a great tool to help teach me what doesn’t work as a cover, and why. Sometimes it can get harsh, but if you can’t handle what’s said here, then you’d better rethink being an author because negative book reviews often get far harsher.

I think what sets this site apart is the covercritics.com companion site. Nathan could’ve easily left it just as lousybookcovers, but went the extra mile to set up a valuable critique site that offers specific advice to help improve a cover BEFORE it gets published. I took advantage of this and got some very helpful feedback on my latest cover project.

We’re often taught never to judge a book by its cover, except when you’re actually trying to sell a book. Too many indie authors don’t realize the importance of an effective book cover and I think this site underscores this problem. If your cover shows up here, you have two choices. You can complain about it or learn from it. If one of my covers made it here, I’d take advantage and be a quick study.

This one is a long one… and my first foray here in the comments.

I completely understand the author’s struggle on this… but I also see the help being provided within the “negativeity” and “snark” as well. As creatives, many of us exhibit a couple common traits. One being that we see the non-creatives, the semi-creatives, and even the creatives who have the skills and experience but who may not share our vision and we say: “I can do it better, quicker, more effectively, etc.” The other quirk is that many of us creatives see our finished works and we have difficulty seeing the flaws and/or shortcomings; the old “trees for the forest” scenario. The third quirk is that most if the input from our viewers are coming from either folks we know, folks who know and/or admire what we do (or the fact that we have the courage to do it), or folks who generally want to encourage us or be nice because we’ve all been taught that if you don’t have something nice to say then it’s better to say nothing. Unfortunately, these quirks while having some positive aspects also have a ton of negative as well.

For the first, even though we may be creative, most of us are not Multi-creatives to any great degree. Most of us are not equally skilled as writers, graphic designers, artists, etc. Are there exceptions? Of course. But they are rare. In my experience as a passable graphic designer and artist, I submit that MOST authors should NEVER create their cover (make sure you focus on the key words before giving exceptions… there are always exceptions). They just don’t have they eye or experience for it. Of course, this depends on their intent with publishing. If they are targeting a very close circle of friends, family, and hardcore admirers, then the cover matters less. If they are trying to be considered a professional in either the indie or small/big press published worlds, then they should seek and use professional services or at least designers with a positive reputation and recommendations. In my opinion, the cover is as important as the story; it is still, even in the digital world, the doorway to purchase and an indication of the quality within. If you have a poor cover but a fantastic story, then you are losing out on a portion of readers who won’t give it a second glance or take a chance.

For the second, one of the reasons authors will typically put aside their first draft for a period of time before tackling further revisions (and also why hard-nosed editors and alpha/beta readers who are honest enough to point out the flaws and portions for rework are so important) is that creatives are not good judges of their own work (for positive or negative). Let’s face it… we suck at self-critique. We’re either too positive or too negative. Experienced creators are normally too negative (unless they become arrogant) and inexperienced/newbie creatives tend to be too positive and blind to the faults. We creatives NEED input from others.

This leads me to the last. As creatives we need BOTH positive and negative input. First, we need positive input for a single important aspect: it gives us courage and confidence to create more and then let our creations run free in the wild. Without the positive re-enforcement and validation, why do it in the first place. But… and this is a HUGE BUT, it must must must be tempered with reality. IF we want to be viewed as professionals in our creative endeavors, then our works will be sent out to the real world and all of the potential readers/clients out there. THOSE people don’t know you as the creative. THOSE people have no need to be nice and search for the positive in your works. THOSE people are going to be extremely judgmental based on first impressions and even though they may not tell you what turned them off when they saw your work, the amount of demand for your work will be a key indication of how good it seems to be to those people. We have a choice as creatives. We can continue to think that our stuff is great and suffer with low demand because the nice people won’t tell us what is wrong… and get upset/hurt when the harsh real world craps on our misconceptions. OR we can take in the negative responses, make better choices next time, and get more demand for our stuff (which is the true indication of how good we are).

Once we creatives start moving out of our passion being a hobby and turning it into a potential professional outlet, we must (MUST!!!) change our approach and grow a thicker skin. We must (MUST!!!) gain our validation from the positive comments. We must (MUST!!!) put aside out hurt from the negative comments and dig into them to find those nuggets of truth and the opportunities for improving our works next time. If more than one person (heck sometimes even if only one person) points out a flaw (or calls out work CRAP) and shatters our perception that we created something that wasn’t as awesome as we thought, then we need to be able to put aside our first response of defending our choices and instead look deep and realize that we may in fact be COMPETELY WRONG… and that we need some help.

We all need some help. Even Stephen King (if you are a fan) needs help on writing to get to the finished product… and he doesn’t create any of his covers. There is a lesson in that if you think about that.

These are the lessons that I’ve learned as a creative… and that I continue to learn about.

Lousy Book Covers serves a useful purpose. I have considered self-pubbing my late teens-early twenties short stories just because. If I ever made a cover for a self-pubbed book that was as bad as some of the covers shown here I would (a) deserve criticism and (b) try to learn from it. And here’s a thing about saying art is subjective. So is often critical taste. If I felt the cover was harshly judged, I would not take it personal, just different tastes.

But quite frankly covers pointed out here are often objectively flawed in the sense that most book buyers would have a negative reaction. Some covers here are the tactical equivalent of sending your child off to school with rags randomly selected from a drop-off bag at the salvage store.