51 Terrible Book Covers That You Can’t Help But Judge (New Pics)

The current state of the global book market isn’t in a great place for writers and graphic designers right now. Especially online. The spread of generative AI means that the internet is now flooded with AI slop: awful, cheap, bland, generic, soulless, and inaccurate ‘books.’ They are generated by people trying to scam their way into making a quick buck.

This is a problem on many levels. For one, it makes it harder for real writers to stand out online among all that noise.

On top of that, it means that there are tons of people making cheap knockoffs of the books written by real, talented, hardworking, unique writers.

Meanwhile, some people are deluding themselves into thinking that they are real writers when they’re just outsourcing all of their thinking and hard work to a chatbot.

Rolling Stone magazine reports that more and more authors are realizing that people are ripping off their books with the help of generative AI. It is a pervasive problem in the online bookselling industry in this day and age, especially on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) self-publishing platform. And it’s having a massive negative impact.

For one, authors are obviously missing out on some of the revenue that they would’ve made if they didn’t have to compete with knockoffs of their own work. And, secondly, this flood of AI slop is making both bookselling and the entire internet worse places for everyone.

“The problem with these slop books isn’t just that they are diverting revenue that should be in the pockets of writers who wrote books. The problem is that they’re deceiving buyers. These are garbage books that exist to suck up money from the inattentive and get away with ripping off readers as well as writers,” best-selling author Cory Doctorow told Rolling Stone.

Despite Amazon claiming that the company invests significant time and resources into ensuring that its content guidelines are followed, some writers feel that the vetting process isn’t good enough to prevent the flood of knockoffs. The burden of policing these infractions often falls on the author.

Journalist and author Talia Lavin told Rolling Stone magazine that AI knockoffs are “quietly violent.”

“You’re stealing my work, my face. You’re stealing my life and writing lies about it. On an individual level, it’s not like I’m some avenging Joan of Arc against a great humiliation. But taken in aggregate, this is the biggest book marketplace in the world. And look how easily it’s distorted in this way.”

In the meantime, Sky News states that more than half (51%) of writers are scared that they will be replaced by artificial intelligence. What’s more, 85% of writers believe that AI will negatively impact their future income. And 39% of writers revealed that their finances have already been affected.

“I worry that a book industry driven mainly by profit will be tempted to use AI more and more to generate books. If it is cheaper to produce novels using AI (no advance or royalties to pay to authors, quicker production, retainment of copyright), publishers will almost inevitably choose to publish them. And if they are priced cheaper than 'human made' books, readers are likely to buy them, the way we buy machine-made jumpers rather than the more expensive hand-knitted ones,” warns best-selling author Tracy Chevalier.

If you’re a writer or graphic designer, then you probably have a love-hate relationship with criticism. On the one hand, criticism is great because it helps you grow as a professional. Plus, it helps make your end product much better. On the other hand, it’s incredibly difficult to hear someone judge something you’ve poured your heart and soul into.

And yet, without criticism, you can end up making lots of dumb mistakes that you could’ve avoided by putting together a quick focus group full of family, friends, or strangers, and asking them to be honest.

Ideally, you’ll be able to set your ego aside, avoid taking the criticism personally, and hone in on the comments that are actually useful, instead of hateful for no real reason.

You need to find a balance between staying true to your artistic vision and connecting with your target audience. If you blindly stick to your vision without caring about what your audience thinks, you might alienate them. On the other hand, if you throw out any personality and uniqueness just to do what you think others want, you’ll probably end up with something bland and generic.

In short, you should adjust your creative work in a way that allows you to respect both your own skills as a professional and the wants and needs of the people you hope to impress.

Created way back in late May of 2014, the ‘Terrible Book Covers’ online community remains incredibly popular. At the time of writing, it gets 16k weekly visitors, who make hundreds of contributions every week.

According to the moderators of the subreddit, this is a place for truly bad book, e-book, and audiobook covers that actually exist. Designs that are merely dull or boring aren’t allowed.

While fake book covers can be incredibly funny, all the members of ‘Terrible Book Covers’ are encouraged to focus on what’s real. “There are so many real books with terrible covers out there! We want to see them.”

What’s more, you shouldn’t post the cover designs of the books that you’ve written or done art for. “And seriously, have a little self-respect,” the mods quip.

We honestly can’t wait to hear your thoughts on these designs, Pandas. Which of these book covers do you think was the worst of the worst, and why? On the other hand, were there any covers that you genuinely liked, despite them being so quirky?

In your opinion, what is the very best book cover design that you’ve personally laid eyes on? Tell us all about it in the comments!