The Worst Book Cover in Religious Publishing Awards 2011

Religion Bulletin would like to open nominations for
The Worst Book Cover in Religious Publishing Awards 2011.

You have until December 31, 2011 to nominate a book. Nominations are open to any persons, for any book published since January 1, 2010 and not previously accepted as a nomination. You may either nominate a book for our supreme award, The Worst Book Cover in Religious Publishing, or for one of the specialist categories:

• The Worst Book Cover in Academic Religious Publishing Award
• The Most Unethical Book Cover in Religious Publishing Award

This is the second year of these awards – and competition already appears to be fierce. Here are the nominations we have already received:

First up is Doyle Grimes’ There’s Power Inside of a Woman (Dorrance Publishing, 2010). The artwork portrays a man getting distracted by the (demonic) power inside of a woman, but fortunately being pulled away by a second scantily-clad figure (Jesus), whose groin the man reaches out towards:

Doyle Grimes - There's Power Inside of a Woman

Chapter One (“Women Have Great Power to Influence Men”) opens with the following observation: “There are a lot of saved and unsaved women in this world who don’t have any idea of how much power that they have inside of them. Women are very persuasive, and have the power of leading men into doing a lot of foolish things.”

Now that seems hard to beat, but Howard Graham’s The Monsters Are Coming… And Some are Already Here (Xlibris, 2011) does its level best:

Howard Graham - The Monsters Are Coming… And Some are Already Here

The Monsters Are Coming adds to the bourgeoning genre of Watcher-Fallen Angel-Nephilim-Giant fiction, and is based – albeit loosely – on a heady mix of Old Testament and Enochic motifs.

Betty Wiseman’s contribution to the Awards this year is a book somewhat innocently entitled Bounce the Balls & They will Come: A Coach’s Passion for the Great Commission (New Hope Publishers, 2011).

Betty Wiseman - Bounce the Balls and They Will Come: A Coach's Passion for the Great Commission

That one speaks for itself.

Trevor and Edith Fraser, in Saving Marriage by Applying Biblical Wisdom (WinePress Publishing, 2011), might not have made the wisest choice in illustrating their (biblical) method to save marriage – a clenched fist:

Trevor and Edith Fraser - Saving Marriage by Applying Biblical Wisdom

Louise Barrett Derr’s Experiencing Bible Science: A Lab Book for the Young at Heart (WestBow Press , 2011) provides divinely inspired scientific guidance on almost every scientific topic, from animal classifications (“beasts”, “cattle”, “creeping things”) to genetics (the difference between humans and giants):

We can’t entirely blame Louise Barrett Derr for the book cover design, however, for, as Derr explains, “[The Holy Spirit] often woke me at 5:00 AM and led me through the entire process of creating this book, giving instructions for every page.”

Nothing sells like sexism, and the Rupert Murdoch-owned Zondervan Publishers knows this well when it released The Precious Princess Bible (2010):

Zondervan - Precious Princess Bible

As the blurb for The Precious Princess Bible says, “The twelve colorful tip-in pages will delight little girls with Bible verses that assure her she is God’s precious princess, describe the characteristics of a princess, and list the princesses and queens mentioned in the Bible.” Publishing a range of girls’ and boys’ bibles, Zondervan has the bible to fit the identity politics of every consumer.

Please get your own nominations in by December 31 by submitting them in the comments section below!