Somewhere in the world, there is a gigantic secret warehouse full of hooded men.
They stand in the dark, facing away from humanity, holding swords. None of them knows which novel he belongs to. Some have been waiting twelve years for permission to turn around.
In the corner, a dragon is doing a crossword puzzle.
“Six letters. Mandatory on a fantasy book cover. Starts with D.”
“Dragon,” says one of the hooded men.
“Correct.”
The dragon looks disappointed.
“That was too easy.”
Welcome to the world of book cover design, where originality is essential, provided it looks exactly like last week’s bestseller.
The Great Fantasy Hero Back-Turning Epidemic
One of the strangest features of fantasy book covers is that an astonishing number of protagonists refuse to face the camera.
An entire literary genre has apparently entered witness protection.
Perhaps they all belong to the same criminal organization. Perhaps dental care is so terrible in fantasy kingdoms that people prefer to turn their entire bodies away from strangers.
The sword, of course, is compulsory.
The hero carries one even if he works as an accountant and his most dangerous enemy is an incorrectly completed tax return.
Behind him stands a castle. Behind the castle, a mountain. Behind the mountain, a dragon. Behind the dragon, another castle, because the first one failed its building inspection.
Everything is foggy. Everything is burning. Everyone is preparing for war.
You never see a fantasy book cover featuring a knight sitting in his kitchen, crying because he can’t open a jar of strawberry jam.
Which is a shame.
Especially if the jam is cursed.
Where Have All the Romance Heroes’ Heads Gone?
An entirely different tragedy is unfolding on romance book covers.
The men have no heads.
They have chests. They have abs. Sometimes they even have tattoos. But heads? Apparently, those would ruin the sexual tension.
Imagine a family dinner.
“So, what does your lovely fiancé do for a living?”
“He’s a billionaire.”
“Wonderful. And where’s his head?”
“We find out in the second book.”
“I see. More soup?”
The headless man doesn’t answer.
He can’t.
The publisher, however, thinks he’s perfect.
In a recent survey, he was asked whether he was satisfied with his book cover.
His abdominal muscles filled out the questionnaire.
Five stars for the cover.
Three for the plot.
Nobody Ever Turns on the Lights in a Thriller
Thriller book covers usually feature a lonely woman standing in the middle of a road.
There’s fog.
In front of her stands a house.
One window is illuminated.
Someone is watching from inside.
The woman has been standing in exactly the same spot on forty-seven different book covers, but she still hasn’t reached the house.
The police are looking for her.
Her husband has divorced her.
The local council has issued a parking fine because she’s been blocking the right-hand lane since 2019.
Meanwhile, the electrician inside the house has died.
Nobody dares repair the lighting because if they switched on the other lamps, the entire property would immediately qualify for the cover of an interior design magazine.
The thriller industry cannot allow that to happen.
Who Ordered All These Identical Book Covers?
Unfortunately, the explanation isn’t a secret underground factory where hooded men are raised on cabbage.
Although I’d much prefer that explanation.
The real reason so many book covers look the same is surprisingly practical.
Readers use book covers to identify genres.
A dragon suggests fantasy. A bloody knife suggests a thriller. A kissing couple against a pink background suggests romance.
These visual signals are useful.
Someone looking for a lighthearted love story probably won’t choose a novel featuring a decomposing pig’s head on the cover, even if the title is The Scent of Love.
Although that would certainly be memorable.
There’s nothing wrong with genre conventions.
The problem begins when those conventions become compulsory uniforms.
Suddenly, every fantasy hero wears the same hood, carries the same sword, and visits the same castle.
Eventually, the castle owner puts up a sign:
PRIVATE PROPERTY. NO FANTASY HEROES. DO NOT FEED THE DRAGON.
One Bestseller, One Snake, and a Global Reptile Crisis
Imagine a successful fantasy novel is published.
Its cover features a golden snake against a black background.
The book becomes a bestseller.
One week later, publishers start demanding snakes.
Everyone wants a snake.
Designers draw snakes. Stock image websites run out of snakes. Desperate marketing executives begin appearing outside zoos.
“Good morning. I’d like to rent a cobra.”
“What for?”
“Romantasy.”
“Cobras aren’t particularly romantic.”
“That’s fine. We’ll paint it gold.”
Soon, every second book has a snake on its cover.
One author objects.
“But there aren’t any snakes in my novel!”
“Not a problem. We’ll add one.”
“The book has already been published!”
“Then the sequel can reveal that the grandmother was secretly a snake.”
The grandmother hires a lawyer.
The novel becomes a bestseller.
The snake gets its own spin-off series.
The original author is fired.
Ridiculous?
Of course.
But the real mechanism isn’t so different. Successful book cover trends are often imitated because publishers and authors hope to repeat the same success.
The trouble is, a book doesn’t necessarily become popular because there’s a snake on the cover.
Maybe the story was actually good.
The snake strongly denies this possibility.
The Author Who Wanted Something Completely Original
“I want a unique book cover,” says the author.
“Of course. What do you have in mind?”
“Something nobody has ever seen before.”
“Understood.”
“There should be a hooded man.”
“Right.”
“With a sword.”
“Naturally.”
“And a castle behind him.”
“Certainly.”
“And a dragon.”
The designer thinks for a moment.
“What if the dragon were an accountant?”
“Excuse me?”
“He could be sitting in an office, wearing glasses. He’d use the sword to open letters. And the castle would be under foreclosure.”
“Are you completely insane?”
“Possibly. But you asked for something original.”
“Original, not different!”
This is one of the most fascinating contradictions in book cover design.
Authors want their books to stand out.
At the same time, they want readers to recognize the genre immediately.
These goals aren’t mutually exclusive, but finding the balance takes thought.
If you put a smiling plumber next to a burst water pipe on the cover of a fantasy novel, the result might be wonderfully original.
Unfortunately, readers probably won’t expect ancient prophecies and powerful magic.
Unless the plumber is the last surviving wizard.
In which case, I’d like to read that book immediately.
A Book Cover Is Not a Family Photo Album
There’s another problem.
Some authors want absolutely everything on their book covers.
The protagonist. The love interest. The evil uncle. The magical sword. Three moons. A dragon. The castle. The secret tunnel beneath the castle. The uncle’s childhood trauma.
And preferably the family tree from the appendix.
The designer attempts to squeeze everything into one image.
The result looks as though someone stuffed a medieval battlefield into a jam jar and screwed the title on top.
A reader sees it on a tiny phone screen.
“What’s that?”
“A fantasy novel.”
“Oh. I thought there’d been an accident at the vegetable market.”
But a book cover doesn’t have to tell the entire story.
It doesn’t need every character.
It doesn’t have to reveal the protagonist’s eye color, the sword’s ancient origins, or the dragon’s thyroid condition.
The purpose of a book cover is to spark curiosity, not compress an entire novel into one unfortunate JPEG.
Enter the Premade Book Cover That Has Never Read the Manuscript
Premade book covers are peculiar creatures.
They exist before they meet the stories they will eventually represent.
They sit there, fully designed, sometimes with placeholder titles, waiting for their authors.
They’re rather like dogs in an animal shelter, except they don’t need walking and are considerably less likely to eat your sofa.
A designer creates an image.
Somewhere in the world, an author sees it.
“Oh my God! That’s exactly my book!”
Meanwhile, the cover knows absolutely nothing about the novel.
It doesn’t even know whether the protagonist has hair.
Yet somehow, the connection works.
Because a well-chosen premade book cover doesn’t necessarily illustrate every detail of the plot. It can capture the atmosphere, genre, or central conflict of a story.
And premade cover designers have room to experiment.
They don’t have to squeeze every possible client request into a single composition.
They don’t have to include fourteen characters simply because the author loves them all.
And they don’t necessarily have to create another hooded man.
Although the Hooded Men’s Union has already announced a strike.
How Can You Tell Whether Your Cover Is Just Another Dragon in the Crowd?
Imagine your novel displayed beside twenty other books in the same genre.
Every cover features a dragon.
So does yours.
The dragons look at one another.
“Which book are you in?”
“I don’t know.”
“Neither do I.”
“What’s your title?”
“The Throne of Ashes.”
“Mine too.”
“Then one of us is in the wrong place.”
One dragon calls customer service.
A hooded man answers.
He’s sitting with his back to the telephone.
The question, of course, isn’t whether you’re allowed to use a dragon.
It’s whether your book cover has its own visual identity.
Is it recognizable at thumbnail size?
Can readers actually read the title?
Does it communicate the right genre?
And is there something about it that might make a potential reader stop scrolling?
These questions matter far more than how many dragons currently appear on bestseller covers.
Dragons Aren’t Extinct. They’re Just Overqualified.
Not every book cover needs to start a revolution.
A romance novel can look romantic. A thriller can look unsettling. And a fantasy book cover can absolutely feature a dragon.
You don’t necessarily have to replace it with a depressed washing machine contemplating the collapse of medieval feudalism.
Although, I admit, I’d give that book a chance.
Originality doesn’t always mean throwing every familiar visual element out of the window.
Sometimes it simply means using those elements differently.
An unexpected composition. Unusual colors. Strong typography. A visual idea that doesn’t merely repeat the promise made by the book next to yours.
Readers don’t buy novels because the dragon on the cover has the necessary professional qualifications.
They buy them because something catches their interest.
Finally, a Public Service Announcement About Missing Fantasy Heroes
If you find a hooded man in your garden, please do not feed him.
He has probably escaped from a book cover.
If he’s carrying a sword, he’s a fantasy hero.
If the sword is bloody, he’s from a thriller.
If he has no head, he’s from a romance novel.
And if all three are true, contact the publisher immediately.
Someone has mixed up the genres again.
And if you happen to be an indie author looking for a book cover, there’s a slightly less dangerous solution.
Looking for a Book Cover With Its Own Personality?
Take a look at the exclusive premade book covers by BoN Editions.
You might discover a design that doesn’t just fit your genre but also captures the atmosphere of your particular story.
Each exclusive premade design is sold only once, so another author won’t buy the same cover from the collection.
We can’t promise that every dragon is house-trained.
But finding the right book cover shouldn’t require sacrificing a virgin, storming a castle, or marrying a snake.
The snake is married, anyway.
He married the grandmother.
They’re currently writing the third book together.
Explore BoN Editions premade book covers on Ko-fi.
Continue the Conversation
If the dragon has not yet filed a restraining order, here are three more stories you might enjoy.
– The Mentor User Manual (That Somehow Never Comes in the Box)
What happens when you discover that even the best mentor can’t think for you?
– The Secret to Success as an Artist? I Wish I Knew
Everyone knows how artists should succeed. Strangely, nobody agrees.
– How Am I Supposed to Write a Case Study When I Have No Idea How My Work Was Created?
Some artists follow a plan. Others follow a sleepwalking penguin.
Give Your Story a Cover of Its Own
Your novel deserves more than a dragon with a part-time accounting job.
At BoN Editions, I create exclusive premade book covers for independent authors looking for atmosphere, personality, and a visual identity that fits their story.
Each exclusive design is sold only once.
👉 Explore My Exclusive Premade Book Covers
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