We know that you should never judge a book by its cover, but let’s be honest. Everyone does it.
Having really great jacket art can make or break a book when it comes time to market it to potential readers. Right or wrong, it’s the first thing that they’ll see when they pick up the book. Does it look professional? Is it appealing to the eye? Does it properly represent the contents of the story contained within? Does it make you want to read the book?
Having an awful book cover can spell certain doom, but often times they come about purely by accident. Surely someone had those questions above in mind when they designed it, no? At one point they must have convinced themselves that it was a great idea.
Sometimes a bad one can be so bad that it actually becomes good. Well, maybe we shouldn’t go quite that far, but they are certainly worth the laughs involved. We’ll let these speak for themselves. Wait, no we won’t. We couldn’t resist captioning them. Enjoy!
John Green’s original draft of The Fault in Our Stars was a clunky affair. In this version, sixteen-year-old cancer patient Hazel was a middle aged bald man. Let’s just say it made the love affair with the one-legged boy Augustus really, really creepy.
Little know fact: Before Don DeLillo’s National Book Award winning novel was titled White Noise it was titled Panasonic. Before it was titled Panasonic? Well, it was originally called Revelation Road, and this was the cover art.
So you see Billy, even though Linda dumped you, and you have to stay back a grade, don’t worry. Hope is just beyond the horizon. And when I say hope, I’m referring to the giant nuclear mushroom cloud that will claim your life.
Nothing says “I wrote a book to tell you things, but you’re too stupid to understand them” like boldly proclaiming that you’ve included “Helpful Commentary” on the cover.
Is this a trick question? Life Alert, obviously. Especially when they’ve fallen and they can’t get up.
Y Kant Tori Read? Our guess is she learned pretty damn fast after posing for this cover.
Did you fail Christian Parenting 101? Were you sent to Remedial Christian Parenting? In this class, Dr. Cameroon will teach you the basics of parenting, Satan’s genitalia, and the truth about evil Easter Eggs. Hint: Ever wonder where the cream comes from in the Cadbury eggs?
Missed the original post in this series? Check out these awful book covers as well.
