the covers from the books. i felt like i was doing something wrong since i'm an author and all. it was like destroying the one thing i was made to create, yikes!
after removing all the covers and cutting the spines out of them (except for the end books of course) i started gluing them to the box.
it was super easy, took me about 10 minutes and turned out awesome! no more mess!
you can't even see the box from the side. 