I don’t feel the love, but I do feel that lasso about to tighten around her neck.
jic
9 years ago
Alternate title –
Clip Art: The Short Story
Ben
9 years ago
Life ain’t nothing but jpeg scarring and pixels…
James F. Brown
9 years ago
Cover isn’t pixelated enough. Try harder next time.
Catie
9 years ago
What the… Where, where are these things coming from? It’s like an invasion of the absurd. Seriously, someone is making all of these on purpose. Has to be. It’s the only logical explanation.
That would actually make sense. I’m just amazed how he manages to do them with so much variation!
EricL
9 years ago
“Oh, how I love you”… I’m guessing she doesn’t love this person at all. Please tell me this is some sarcastic attempt at making a horror story version of a romance. No one can be this incompetent in cover design, can they?
Howard
9 years ago
The author needs to venture out to a real bookshop and see what real book covers look like. Too much time on the internet and you lose your sense of reality.
I’m afraid to think what my own covers will look like after spending so much time here. Luckily there aren’t usually any wolves in my stories but all the characters usually have eyes. Which frightens me.
You’re in the clear, your cover can only get better. Me, however, I’m still expecting to find mine here one day. Funny story behind it, it was a sort of a dare/contest on Scribophile. We had to write a short story in two weeks, slap a $10 cover on it and publish it on Amazon under an unused pen name and see who would sell the most. It was fun. I gave my sis 10 bucks to paint me some cover art and published :D. It’s not a totally pro cover, since she did it in a day or two, but it’s not your typical refrigerator art either, not the LBC kind, at least XD. One of the other participants did end up on here, but not with the original cover, it was the ‘new and improved’, lol. After the contest was over, people seemed to be reading it, so I just left it up there. I’m shameless, I know. It’s not under a name I plan to use again, so I don’t really care. When it’s time to publish something I actually care about, I’ll bring the cover to the workshop 😉
Yeah, plus the more you try to be the worst, the more you fail and just end up being mediocre. Being so hilariously bad as to be unintentionally entertaining requires a certain lack of self-consciousness that can be neither taught nor learned; you’d basically be trying to “un-educate” yourself.
I have sometimes thought we ought to have “Oh, so you think you can do better?” cover editing contests on here just for fun, though. The objective (which, if you achieve it, “wins” you nothing but some praise and maybe a good laugh from the other posters on here) is either to design a better cover, or else parody the given cover in a way that makes fun of its worst shortcomings.
That is true. I am thinking back now to when I had to design a character who was completely colourblind and only the tonal values of gray mattered. It was next to impossible to not put nice colours together. Took me all day to make it truly hideous.
Perhaps this alternative idea of yours would be better served!
I like your idea better. Let’s pick a cover and have two categories: Who can make the best remake, and who can make the best parody. People can enter in both if they wish. That would be an AWESOME practice for anyone who wants to make his or her own cover, plus a leaning experience from seeing what everyone else has done. I’m in. Hey, we could even have some prizes. Nathan and anyone who has a published book could donate free copies for the prize pool (and the winner can leave reviews after he reads them, so everybody wins XD).
Friendzoned by the Centaur? OK, that is hilarious in more ways than one, though that cover actually looks pretty well drawn. Congratulations on winning first prize with that one, by the way.
Joe
9 years ago
The woman is sad because she’s been beheaded by the speech bubble.
RK
9 years ago
What’s really awful about this particular cover is that it’s actually a revision. The original cover was no great shakes either, but due to the magic (black sorcery, actually) of Amazon’s Cargo Cult format, now it’s even worse.
The back cover is also even worse than the front. Here’s what the blurb on the back says:
A Loving Story About How A Daughter was Taken from her Mother Forced to live with her father ,This sweet little girl was with no understanding that life sometimes has to make choices for you ,Was her Mother Bad ?Was her Father Wrong?Or is it that Divorce is a struggle and the Children hurt ,Do we all hurt ?I am sure we all do.This Story will help open your eyes with the understanding lifes choices and how we all live with the mistakes we make,Leaving room for the creator of all ,To face up and Take Control of the realm of the Now ,We can make a change and difference in our lives if we focus on the answers and listen to the Voice of our hearts desire to win this race .
Sadly, the author isn’t even an ESL student. She claims to be California born, making her a product of my state’s educational system. I hang my head in shame for my state’s failure.
It’s not your eyes! It’s this cover! I HAVE SEEN THAT TYPE OF PIXELATION. Inept use of software that uses a lo-res preview mode for art positioning and trial page make up using a thumbnail JPEG, then the hi-res TIFF image should be selected for final color seperation before going to print. But the operator forgets to select hi-res going to print. oopsy.
I don’t feel the love, but I do feel that lasso about to tighten around her neck.
Alternate title –
Clip Art: The Short Story
Life ain’t nothing but jpeg scarring and pixels…
Cover isn’t pixelated enough. Try harder next time.
What the… Where, where are these things coming from? It’s like an invasion of the absurd. Seriously, someone is making all of these on purpose. Has to be. It’s the only logical explanation.
Maybe a sock puppet for Nathan does it, just so he has fuel for this blog! (KIDDING!)
LET THE CONSPIRACIES BEGIN!
That would actually make sense. I’m just amazed how he manages to do them with so much variation!
“Oh, how I love you”… I’m guessing she doesn’t love this person at all. Please tell me this is some sarcastic attempt at making a horror story version of a romance. No one can be this incompetent in cover design, can they?
The author needs to venture out to a real bookshop and see what real book covers look like. Too much time on the internet and you lose your sense of reality.
I’m afraid to think what my own covers will look like after spending so much time here. Luckily there aren’t usually any wolves in my stories but all the characters usually have eyes. Which frightens me.
Honestly my time here helped me with my cover. Learning what not to do helps immensely!
Besides you know to go to Cover Critics first!
You’re in the clear, your cover can only get better. Me, however, I’m still expecting to find mine here one day. Funny story behind it, it was a sort of a dare/contest on Scribophile. We had to write a short story in two weeks, slap a $10 cover on it and publish it on Amazon under an unused pen name and see who would sell the most. It was fun. I gave my sis 10 bucks to paint me some cover art and published :D. It’s not a totally pro cover, since she did it in a day or two, but it’s not your typical refrigerator art either, not the LBC kind, at least XD. One of the other participants did end up on here, but not with the original cover, it was the ‘new and improved’, lol. After the contest was over, people seemed to be reading it, so I just left it up there. I’m shameless, I know. It’s not under a name I plan to use again, so I don’t really care. When it’s time to publish something I actually care about, I’ll bring the cover to the workshop 😉
Ha! That sounds like a fun competition.
You are not going to go looking for the cover, are you? *runs and hides*
Don’t worry. I never had to search out covers — they come to me.
Phew. I guess if it hasn’t found it’s way here in the last two years I’m safe.
And yeah, it was fun 😀 Got some pocket change out of it, too.
just like a modern day Frankenstein story! Neat. That actually does sound fun.
I’m suggesting this idea to my writer’s group tonight!
Can I join in? XD
Of course. Our writer’s group is open to anyone! Might be a bit of a drive though. 😉
A drive? More of a 12 hour flight XD. At least.
Just to add, we had a set theme also, and a setting. The theme was gender change/switch, and the setting was a tropical island.
That sounds like a heck of a fun competition! We ought to do that here.
A fun contest for this site would be ‘Who can make the absolutely worst book cover ever’.
Use a book description someone writes up, and watch the mayhem!
me likey. Who else is up for this?
This frightens me. It sounds good, until you realize THE BARREL HAS NO BOTTOM.
Yeah, plus the more you try to be the worst, the more you fail and just end up being mediocre. Being so hilariously bad as to be unintentionally entertaining requires a certain lack of self-consciousness that can be neither taught nor learned; you’d basically be trying to “un-educate” yourself.
I have sometimes thought we ought to have “Oh, so you think you can do better?” cover editing contests on here just for fun, though. The objective (which, if you achieve it, “wins” you nothing but some praise and maybe a good laugh from the other posters on here) is either to design a better cover, or else parody the given cover in a way that makes fun of its worst shortcomings.
This cover, for example.
That is true. I am thinking back now to when I had to design a character who was completely colourblind and only the tonal values of gray mattered. It was next to impossible to not put nice colours together. Took me all day to make it truly hideous.
Perhaps this alternative idea of yours would be better served!
Yeah, I’ve read a few that tried to write in the style of the worst fanfic ever, but you just can’t imitate stupidity + lack of education + ignorance of the material you’re trying to fanfic. It just comes out forced and fake.
I like your idea better. Let’s pick a cover and have two categories: Who can make the best remake, and who can make the best parody. People can enter in both if they wish. That would be an AWESOME practice for anyone who wants to make his or her own cover, plus a leaning experience from seeing what everyone else has done. I’m in. Hey, we could even have some prizes. Nathan and anyone who has a published book could donate free copies for the prize pool (and the winner can leave reviews after he reads them, so everybody wins XD).
Sorry for the ink fail. Did I mention my occupation is web developer?
LINK fail. Ok, time to get off the internet and take a ride in my awesome fail train.
I did this: http://i.imgur.com/r8RFTFT.png for a bad covers contest once, and it was hard not to sit there and obsess about making it look decent.
Viergacht, that cover is awesome! Looks like you can make it deliberately funny, but not deliberately terrible XD
Friendzoned by the Centaur? OK, that is hilarious in more ways than one, though that cover actually looks pretty well drawn. Congratulations on winning first prize with that one, by the way.
The woman is sad because she’s been beheaded by the speech bubble.
What’s really awful about this particular cover is that it’s actually a revision. The original cover was no great shakes either, but due to the magic (black sorcery, actually) of Amazon’s Cargo Cult format, now it’s even worse.
The back cover is also even worse than the front. Here’s what the blurb on the back says:
This is atrocious; but remember, people: if you try to correct any of this, you’re a racist.
Only if she’s not white and you are. (At least, those were the rules last I heard. They may have changed by now.)
Sadly, the author isn’t even an ESL student. She claims to be California born, making her a product of my state’s educational system. I hang my head in shame for my state’s failure.
Your book blurb should be the best writing in your book! At the very least you should read it again after typing it.
This book should really be called “Mary rincon and The Improper use of Title case disAster”
Note: Not racist, as I am a stack of waffles.
I’m a sea snail, what about me?
For a long time I thought you were a close up of a sculpted pink cat wearing a ball-cap. Then I zoomed in.
I have a few cat avatars too, but nothing that insane. And for a while, I thought you were a lady waffle XĐ
It was my luscious strawberries wasn’t it?
At least it wasn’t a cherry.
Just get a room you two. You’re making me a bit uncomfortable.
And jealous.
Hey, there’s enough strawberries for everyone, no need to be jealous.
I’m willing to share!
Dammit, it looks like I’m finally gonna have to book that appointment at the opticians – my vision appears to have gone all blurry….
It’s not your eyes! It’s this cover! I HAVE SEEN THAT TYPE OF PIXELATION. Inept use of software that uses a lo-res preview mode for art positioning and trial page make up using a thumbnail JPEG, then the hi-res TIFF image should be selected for final color seperation before going to print. But the operator forgets to select hi-res going to print. oopsy.