An ugly ass book cover is something that generally bugs the absolute hell out of me, both as a reader and a writer. Originally I wrote about this on my blog, but it’s been about a year so I’m going to update my consensus as its necessary. After all, there are a shit ton of book cover reveals that happen daily, both commercial releases and indie publications alike. So let’s get down to the nitty gritty.

Just stop with the ugly ass book covers.

An ugly ass book cover is like fucking someone with syphilis. Living dangerously is fine, but the irony of you having to be standing in the need of prayer because the visible affliction of sores your partner shows hasn’t done fuck all to make you want to keep distance is evident.

As the saying goes, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but an ugly ass book cover already makes you question the content of the pages. It boils down to choice – if you’re down to your last twenty bucks until payday and you only can buy one book at 19.99 no tax, you, like the rest of the free world will completely kick that ugly ass book cover to the curb. I don’t care what little idiot on TikTok capes for the book – the ugly ass book cover that looks like digested chitterlings on rye crisp shat out after the dog snatched one too many cheese cubes from the appetizer plate during Christmas is not going to be in the running for that book to make that money.

Authors may know all of this but in certain situations it isn’t their fault. Authors signed with PenguinRandomSchuster are pretty much in an endless cycle of the trial of the damned being signed as there isn’t fuck all they can do to change their book cover fate. Those tasteless industry motherfuckers have college educated alphabet woke crusaders over there picking the least offense, gender neutral, sexless shit that think will appease everybody and keep their bowels open better than prune juice and cascara sagrada with a smile instead of graphic designers that live, breathe, and eat art. It’s a shame those cranberry magenta motherfuckers making decisions at the Cerebus of publishing aka PenguinRandomSchuster can’t be honest to the book’s content and actually pay people that have a flair for this shit like they used to do to in the olden days where the artist had to read the book then draw a cover.

Artificial intelligence has made this conundrum WORSE. AI now makes decisions based on algorithms and data versus actual human interaction, which means now asshole lipstick pillow princess literary experts with trust funds will use that to keep up with the industry jonese and claim they know without a shadow of a doubt what the average reading commoners that still buy books exclusively on the one shelf at Walmart like for the entirety of the market share as a whole.

Guess what. NOBODY LIKES THEM, not even the ass kissing indies that are waiting on the sidelines for a head pat by the industry in the off chance they get a 360 book deal so they can go into debt to make it.

Indies, and I’m talking to you directly, what in the hell is going on? Why are there multitudes of shitty ass book covers you keep throwing out there on KDP? This for the self published and the indie book imprints. Facts of life talk here…graphic designers typically make more money on book covers than the authors. I get money is tight, especially now in the age of tariffs. But c’mon now, if you don’t have enough money to fucking pay a graphic designer to make a book cover not look like the ultimate arts and crafts project from hell you should stop fucking publishing.

Yeah, I said it – hang it the fuck up.

Indies have to be twice as good and four times as kick ass to get half the attention of the hack asses at Penguin Random Schuster. There is no excuse to have something out there that looks like what a bear leaves behind shitting in the woods when you have software like Krita out there, which is pretty much free Adobe Photoshop, and all the tutorials in the world between TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube showing you how to lay something out simple. Do better yall. Hell, at least barter for your covers with the artists that looking to keep their skills sharp in the face of AI.

The feng shui bullshit covers littered about in Mystery, Thriller, and Crime have now been replace with even worse AI covers by all sides combined. These feminist friendly, BIPOC appropriated covers that writers scratching for a seat at the table of the middle ground between being known and unknown are like the cherry on top in a shit sandwich. Portrait pictures in tint color or a landscape of something over the horizon with the ugliest two toned wired lettering with a basic gradient covering it should never be an option on the table. All of these covers emulating Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and all their editions look like a prayer warrior’s church flyer for a date night that a criminal mystery novel.

Then there are covers that look like experimental “ambiance” paintings of the American landscape in a black top wasteland with either animals, vehicles, and mountains off in the distance done by finger paint interpretation of preschoolers learning their colors by using clip art as a guide sheet. The quasi script writing for the title text and author name that I assume is supposed to be a finger brush effect looks more like doing calligraphy with a dirty mop. This shit has been going on now since I feel like I’m watching a very bad fucked up Hallmark Holiday greeting card documentary on the practice years. As Susan Powder used to vivaciously say, stop the motherfucking insanity! Dropping a towel in mud and having Forest Gump wipe his face and magically create the Joe Boxer smiley face only happens in the movies. Drop your book in mud to get a textured look and its going to come out looking just like it looks, like shit.

Hell, the more simplistic covers that are a solid color featuring only text on it without pictures is equally as fucked up. Seriously. There are 1,295,384,291,039 fucking fonts on the planet – how is it book cover after book cover keeps picking THE TOP 10 WORST OF THEM? It took me six months to pick the old school font that I wanted for my novel Ghosts On The Block Never Sleep. It took my cover artist half a year to sketch and paint it before redoing it for a digital version. It wasn’t cheap either trying to get that vintage style. At least it looked good, like an old school Holloway House novel, not like most of this crap out here now that AI shits out in an eyeblink a certain crop of writers apllaud as greatness when its literally a sandwich served on a garbage can lid invested with rats.

Stop the cap. Save a book and don’t do a shit cover.