This cover might just be the one that makes me write to Amazon for a job:
Dear Mr. Bezos,
I realize self-pubbed books are at the bottom of the Amazon food chain and that they barely appear on your annual sales percentages charts, however, I believe I can offer a service to you (for a reasonable rate) that will save you and these self-pubbing authors much embarrassment.
Please hire me today to vet the covers for all literary submissions that are self-published. If I determine that they suck too much they are kicked back to the authors with stern warnings that failure to provide adequate, decent-looking covers with some hint of professional design will prohibit their (questionable) prose from being sold on your esteemed website.
Please, please hire me to do this job. In the process it will lead to more work for actual designers (who can then spend money on Amazon) and save the world from covers like the one for The Temptation of John Haynes by Shawn James. What do you mean you’ve never seen it and don’t know what I’m talking about? Mr. Bezos, clearly you need to get ’round to your website more often.
Regards,
Sirona, Cover Critic
LydiaFC
10 years ago
It looks like there was some attempt at a coherent book cover. The composition isn’t bad. The font isn’t terrible. It’s readable. But what the hell is up with the illustration? It brings up the thought I frequently have when looking at these covers: Someone out there thought this was good. It’s a bit frightening, just not in the sense the author was going for.
Jen
10 years ago
Well, if Mr. James was going for some new form of FKD up folk art, he certainly achieved it in spades.
What in the world? I her horns crooked or just her head?
Let me rephase that: Are her horns crooked or just her head?
LOL. 2014 Cover Art of the Year Award, Helen Keller Middle School, 6th Grade Division.
Her hands remind me of the SNL character portraying a Lennon sister from Lawrence Welk.
YES! Creepy mini doll hands!
Besides that, the thumb is on the WRONG SIDE of her hand!!!
Well Kris, after all she is some sort of alien so the thumb might be on the right hand.
Going by the guy’s huge eyes and teeny tiny ears, I’m willing to bet he’s an alien as well.
This cover might just be the one that makes me write to Amazon for a job:
Dear Mr. Bezos,
I realize self-pubbed books are at the bottom of the Amazon food chain and that they barely appear on your annual sales percentages charts, however, I believe I can offer a service to you (for a reasonable rate) that will save you and these self-pubbing authors much embarrassment.
Please hire me today to vet the covers for all literary submissions that are self-published. If I determine that they suck too much they are kicked back to the authors with stern warnings that failure to provide adequate, decent-looking covers with some hint of professional design will prohibit their (questionable) prose from being sold on your esteemed website.
Please, please hire me to do this job. In the process it will lead to more work for actual designers (who can then spend money on Amazon) and save the world from covers like the one for The Temptation of John Haynes by Shawn James. What do you mean you’ve never seen it and don’t know what I’m talking about? Mr. Bezos, clearly you need to get ’round to your website more often.
Regards,
Sirona, Cover Critic
It looks like there was some attempt at a coherent book cover. The composition isn’t bad. The font isn’t terrible. It’s readable. But what the hell is up with the illustration? It brings up the thought I frequently have when looking at these covers: Someone out there thought this was good. It’s a bit frightening, just not in the sense the author was going for.
Well, if Mr. James was going for some new form of FKD up folk art, he certainly achieved it in spades.
Oh it is so hard to choose! Check his Amazon page. I dare you. There are a lot of chicks with no eyes too: http://www.amazon.com/Isis-Beauty-Myth-Shawn-James/dp/1482309335