and space ships.

Crude kids' drawings. I know it's just a tip-off to the genre but I mean the type of thing you see when you're scrolling a pirate website which makes you think "nope".

>six-packs

I can make an exception here but this is a terrible cover for this book.

Good looking people with wolves.

Swords.

Pixies.

Cozy-mystery puns.

This fucking bitch.

I know this has been viral for years...

... but I think a balloon delivery company is a good idea really. Have you ever tried carting a big, heavy balloon home on your own?

When I see things like "for Game of Thrones fans", I think it's going to be a cynical rip-off. I hate when they swipe whole characters, like Sherlock Holmes, too.

I hate when the title's nearly the same as some piece of classic fiction, like it's supposed to lend it an air of credibility it doesn't deserve, and have the less culturally literate thinking "Oh, I think I've heard of that."

>>6808
>A Pride and Prejudice variation

Is this legal? How is this legal? It's certainly not tasteful. Jimmies distinctly rustled, pah.

>>6809

Pride and Prejudice is out of copyright, so you can do what you like with it. I could perfectly legally publish a book called Pride and Prejudice and Violent Bumming, which consists of the entire text of Pride and Prejudice with some added gay rape scenes.

>>6796
It's a lot like graphic t-shirts. If the cover is a more concrete image of something it's a bad sign, usually abstract images/patterns or just a title and block colours are a better sign. Trying to resemble a film poster is a good indication it's trash.

>>6809

I've forgotten the right terms, but aren't some classics "public domain" or whatever the correct legalese is?

>>6812

Copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years, after which all creative works enter the public domain. With the sole exception of the stage version of Peter Pan. Seriously, Google it.

>>6797
Why are you trying to bait me, m8. Those books are ace. I also read a steampunk novel with a Zeppelin on the front that was good once, honest.

>>6813

Is it life of the Author plus 70 years in the UK? I thought that came about because of Disney desperately trying to keep a hold of Mickey.

>>6797

A space ship and a nebulous title is an indicator that I'll love a book, to be honest. LW and the rest of the Expanse series is proper good. They made it into a telly series and everything.

Sage for being a nerd

>>6814>>6816
Thirded.

Having a spaceship on the cover is really just an indicator of the genre.
Sci-fi art is a thriving business, and the cover of books like LW are very expertly produced.
Instead, something that is more likely to show that a sci-fi book is terrible, is that the spaceship on the cover is low quality CGI thrown onto a generic background, like this.

A lot of the book covers in this thread which look awful, are awful because they've been thrown together by a minimum wage freelancer with a load of stock photos. Like >>6801 which would have looked far more convincing if everything below the shoulders just faded to black, instead of making horribly bodged-in hand.
And >>6808 would have been passable if they'd left it as either just the house, or just those bony tarts. Having their heads in an inset is what makes it look crappy.

>>6808

The Heir's Disgrace sounds like the filthiest sort of erotica.

I love this book cover but don't fancy the synopsis in the least.

>Sam Thornton is a soul collector. After having his own soul collected more than 60 years ago, Sam has resigned himself to his lot in life. Dispatched on another routine collection—this time for the soul of Kate, a young girl who savagely murdered her family—Sam reaches in to take her essence, and is thrown back by the force of the beauty and light within her, leaving Sam in a precarious and dangerous position: refusing to finish the job...

>>6819

I'm not really talking about covers anymore but books which won't stay in one genre bug me. It's why I don't like urban fantasy and magical realism.

Then there are books I think of having Scooby Doo plots, which are billed as gently creepy horror but then everything ends up having a rational explanation. Even if it seems perfectly engrossing while I'm reading it, the ending makes me just not know what to make of it.

>>6820

Jeremy Bates is bad for this.

>>6820
>books which won't stay in one genre bug me. It's why I don't like urban fantasy and magical realism.
Not to just throw around the term "autism" willy-nilly like, but...

I'm really the only one to find steampunk and mash-ups annoying?

>>6823

I've read this and it fully left out the best bit. I'm not trying to do spoilers but you know the bit where they're in the garden?

Oh boy.

>>6814
I think I remember this book.

It's hard to say what makes a book cover a red flag exactly. Ignoring the obvious things like "CLAN VAMPIRE CLASH" being written on it or it being a a stupid steampunk maship, it's something about the quality of the image.

In a lot of the examples here they have that same, cheap looking collage effect:
>>6796
>>6800
>>6801
Or look like a not-quite-professional deviantartist commission:
>>6802
>>6803
I think the biggest tell about >>6808 is the terrible choice of fonts and how they're resized. It's just the whole thing has been obviously done by someone with no idea about design. In the case of >>6817 whoever made and approved the cover having the mental age of a preteen.

I found this

https://kindlecoverdisasters.tumblr.com/

>>7010
Why's this one on there? This the most beautiful imagery the Western World has produced, from cave paintings to baroque cathedrals it was all leading to this one vision of absolute purity and satisfaction.

>>7010
Posting Chuck Tingle is cheating.

>>7015
Pounded In The Butt By A Britfags Poster's Contention That Including My Books About Being Pounded In The Butt In A List Of Humorous Book Titles Is Cheating.

>Who Shot the Serif? by Jessa Archer (Hand Lettering Mystery Book 1)

>When Jamie Lang finds one of her hand lettered quotes on the window of her shop, Flourish, with a hole shot through a serif, she knows someone's trying to drive her business into red ink....

>>7019
Sometimes you just know an author came up with the name and then felt they had to write a book about it.

I'm actually guilty of this, just haven't written the book yet.

>>7020
It's called 'Bangers & Mash' isn't it?

>>7021
The threads are leaking again! It's much better than that, I assure you. Naturally I won't be sharing since I don't want Charlie Brooker to nick it.

>>7022
Mate, saying "dibs on Konnie" didn't actually make her your fiancé.

>>7023
Close but no cigar. It's actually about a team of gay Scottish footballers who moonlight as costumed superheroes in their spare time. It's called 'Power Bottom Rangers'.

>>7024
I wasn't keen on that episode of Black Mirror.

>>7025
It's been terrible ever since the yanks got hold of it to be fair.