Bad Covers

As I have said repeatedly, self-publishers have to take on the role of the publisher which means hiring professional editors and cover artists and so on. Getting one's 9 year old or one's cousin to do the cover will not sell books. (May do a significant public service by warning readers that the book behind the cover is amateur, but won't sell copies of the book.)

Of course, authors also have to ensure that if they are going with a small--sometimes even a large--publisher, that the publisher has some idea of what they are doing. Check out the coverart on their other books before you sign on.

On the other hand, I have heard authors complain about perfectly decent covers because they thought the hero's sword needed to be longer or their heroine was brunette not blonde, or some such triviality. So every once in a while we need to remind ourselves just how bad things can get. Here then, examples of cover art so bad they will make you more appreciative of the cover you got, and/or remind you not to use your own clipart cover: http://lousybookcovers.tumblr.com/