Top Ten Tuesday: I’m The Worst Book Cover Designer Ever

 

Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday! Today, we’re talking about book covers. Have you ever wondered what it takes to design a book cover? I have. I stare at gorgeous covers and wish I had artistic talent. There are some truly stunning books in the world. The books I’m going to show you in this post . . . are not those stunning books. I decided to live out my book designer dream and create some covers for pretend books. The results are not great. I’m not an artist. I jumped into this project without doing any research whatsoever. I want you to have realistic expectations before we wade into the mess I made. You’re probably going to cringe at my creations.

The first step to creating a book cover is learning what the book is about. For my pretend books, I Googled “random book title generator.” (Yes, those exist.) I played with different generators and picked the . . . um . . . stupidest titles. Then I created covers to match the titles. Here’s what happened:

 

 

 

Pretend Covers For Pretend Books

(I’m The Worst Book Cover Designer Ever)

 

 

 

 

Ceasefire Of Hostility

Young Adult Dystopia / Science Fiction

I love this title because it doesn’t make sense. How do you have a hostile ceasefire? Isn’t the point of a ceasefire to avoid hostility? I don’t know. Don’t overthink it.

Ceasefire Of Hostility is an early-2000s YA dystopia. It’s about two countries who are fighting each other for vague, oversimplified reasons that the author doesn’t bother exploring. The war isn’t important. The war is just an inciting incident that forces our main characters into a love triangle. The love triangle is important. This novel is 10 pages of war, 390 pages of love triangle, and 57 pages of snarky banter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aliens Vs Wolves

Science Fiction, But In The Wild West

There’s an alien invasion, and the only Earthlings that can stop it are . . . wolves. This is another title you probably shouldn’t overthink. Why would a wolf care about an alien? I don’t know. Maybe aliens taste like chicken nuggets. I bet wolves love chicken nuggets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Surprise Of The Void

Alice In Wonderland Retelling, But Erotic

Putting “surprise” and “void” in the same sentence just screams “terrible self-published sex adventure.” This novel is clearly about a group of college-aged hikers who get lost in the wilderness. They fall into a void. I’ll leave the rest of the plot to your imagination because I don’t want it in my imagination.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dog With Money

Comedy

This is clearly a comedy. A dog with money would get into all kinds of hilarious shenanigans. I don’t believe the dog would have its money for very long. Dogs are easy to trick. Just pretend to throw a ball, grab the money, and run away. Then you’re a Human With Money.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Dead At My Home

Frankenstein Retelling, But All The Characters Are Broke Millennials

A wannabe scientist digs up corpses and reanimates them in the kitchen of his crappy apartment. He’s hoping to make extra money by training zombies to deliver DoorDash orders. Unfortunately, the zombies are lazy jerks who completely trash his apartment. Now he has a horde of useless undead roommates who don’t pay rent. He has to (quietly) murder the corpses again before he gets evicted for raising the dead. This apartment building doesn’t even allow pets! Resurrected corpses are definitely against the terms of the lease.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Army Of Joy

Travel Memoir

An army of young Karens spend a year traveling around the world. They eat fancy food, stay at expensive resorts, post thousands of selfies on Instagram, speak to several managers, and endlessly annoy the locals. Along the way, they learn profoundly obvious life lessons. This is their memoir.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Answering Nature

Wilderness Survival Guide

“When nature calls, you have to answer.” This is an entire book about peeing in the woods. Peeing in the woods is more complicated than you’d expect. So much can go wrong. This guide will help you avoid messy misadventures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Breakfast Of Fear

Thriller

A blood-red party invitation arrives in your mailbox. You’ve been invited to The Breakfast Of Fear. If you survive the scary breakfast, you’ll win one million dollars. Do you accept the invitation? 

(Spoiler alert: They’ll make you drink those nasty green breakfast smoothies that are just blended-up kale. Yuck.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Loner & The Fruit

My Autobiography

This is a book about me. Obviously. It’s 400 pages of me wondering if I have to go to the grocery store or if we have enough food in the house to get us through another week. I really don’t like shopping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Cottage Of Beyond

Grimm Brothers Fairy Tale

Of course I had to create an illustrated book cover! Look at me, being trendy.

This novel is about a young prince on a quest through a fantasy land. After weeks of walking, he stumbles across a cottage at the edge of a cliff. He can’t figure out how to get down the cliff without dying, so he knocks on the cottage door. Inside, he finds . . . my a random grandmother. She’s loud; she’s opinionated; she’s casually racist. She’ll teach him how to navigate the cliff, but this is a fairy tale, so she wants something in return.

First, the prince has to watch a thousand hours of Fox News with the grandmother and her pack of flea-infested woodland creatures. She repeats everything the TV says while nodding vigorously. It's honestly a bit creepy. Like a robot.

Then he has to cook liver and onions for her dinner. (He doesn’t know how to make liver and onions because who eats liver and onions?! When he cooks it wrong, she beats him with a wooden spoon while screaming at him in German. She knows he doesn’t understand German.)

Then he has to fix everything in her cottage, even the stuff that isn’t broken.

Soon he’s wondering if he should just throw himself off the cliff . . . .

(I swear this fairy tale isn’t inspired by my family. They're not driving me insane. Not at all. *Nervous laughter.*)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Would you read any of my pretend books?

(I would not.)