
Experts tell new writers that an eye-catching cover is crucial if you want your masterpiece to sell. It must also be genre-relevant and professionally designed. Such advice, while correct, lends credence to the old saying about not judging a book by its cover; there are thousands of badly written books hiding behind terrific covers on Amazon. It makes the site’s ‘look inside’ feature far more indispensable than ratings or reviews.
But professionally designed covers are expensive. A quick browse of Amazon will reveal just how many indie authors design their own. These DIY jobs are, almost without exception, truly dreadful. In fact, search ‘terrible book covers’ on Google, and you’ll find websites dedicated to bringing the worst of them to the public’s attention. Covers designed using Amazon’s free design service aren’t much better. You can spot them in an instant because they all look the same.
The advent of—whisper its name—Artificial Intelligence (AI) changed things at a (fake brush) stroke for indie authors. Sites like Midjourney enable even the most artistically inept to create stunning images in seconds. For those unfamiliar with the concept, these sites create visual images based on text prompts provided by the user. You can choose any style you want for the images, from hyper-realistic to cartoonish. And because they are free of copyright, you are free to use the images it creates as you please, even if it created the image for someone else.
I was fortunate enough to be able to hire a professional designer, but, cheapskate that I am, I couldn’t resist dabbling with Midjourney first. After all, why spend hundreds if I can create cover art of my own for next to nothing, right?
Before filling you in on my experience, I should address the controversy that surrounds the use of AI to create works of art. Many complain that not only does AI rob artists and graphic designers of their livelihood, it plagiarises their work. Midjourney and other websites are accused of illegally gathering billions of copyrighted images from the internet. These images provide its bots with the material it needs to create its own images. Writers fear that any talentless hack will soon be able to use AI to create entire novels. In fact, AI-created books are already a thing, but most are non-fiction and awful. Amazon recently limited the number of books an author could publish in any 24-hour period to combat some “authors” publishing dozens of books every day. This action shows just how poor the quality of these books must be.
Opinion is divided. Writers’ groups on Facebook are awash with ‘lively debates’ on the subject. Many claim it is theft. But the issue isn’t as simple as that. And, to me, there’s something a little suspect about their argument. I’ve yet to see an image created by AI that is clearly derived from an existing work of art (unless, of course, a prompt instructed it to incorporate one into an image). AI combines existing images to create something new in much the same way today’s artists draw inspiration from their predecessors—consciously or otherwise—when producing their own original works.
Many writers today emulate the style and the plots of best-selling authors, hoping to boost sales of their books. They even state in their blurbs that their novels are ‘perfect’ for fans of this author or that. Some of these are the same guys that condemn the use of AI to create book covers. It’s impossible for any author to write in a vacuum. The works of our favourite writers rub off on us and their influence inevitably finds its way onto the pages of our books. It’s unintentional, but it’s also unavoidable.
Book cover designers’ concerns over the threat AI poses to their livelihoods are understandable, but I don’t think they have much to worry about. Writers want to write, and although some might dabble with creating their own covers using AI, most who do will learn it’s not as simple as it looks. If they’re like me, they’ll conclude it’s just not worth the hassle. Those who already design their own covers may cough up £30 (ish) for a month’s subscription, and they might cobble together something that is superior to their previous efforts. It might even look professional. But they wouldn’t have employed the services of a professional, anyway. My website’s software provides the AI-generated cartoons that accompany these blog entries. If they didn’t offer this service, this blog would simply appear without cartoons.
The Midjourney interface, accessed via Discord, is easy to use. You type “imagine/” followed by your prompt, press enter, and wait a few seconds for Midjourney to weave its magic. It produces four different images based on your prompt, which, in itself, suggests how open to interpretation even a well-crafted prompt is. There’s something undeniably mesmerising about watching your vision materialise. Until you realise that, although all the components of your vision may be present—although that’s not guaranteed—it still bears little resemblance to what you had envisaged. Midjourney is quirky like that. The moustache may or may not appear under your villain’s nose as specified. It may appear as part of a beard. It may be walrus shaped instead of pencil thin. And they might hold the gun you asked for, but pointed it towards themselves. The gun may even lie on their palm like a small animal. No problem, you think. I just need to make my prompt more specific.
Wrong.
For a start, Midjourney won’t just alter the one detail that troubles you. It will serve up an entirely different image, but perhaps with your villain, now clean-shaven, holding the gun as if it were a spear. His hand may also have become deformed during this transformation, so that it resembles a flipper with a thumb. AI has real trouble with hands: fingers appear and disappear at random.
If you delve into the mechanics of it all, you may find instructions that fix much of the above. But how many authors are prepared to invest that much time and effort into designing their cover? Not me. I’ve got worlds to build! This article, by a book cover designer who has embraced AI, describes the pitfalls and intricacies involved in its use far better than I can and is well worth a read.
Sites like Midjourney don’t offer a cheap fix for the impoverished author. If you let them, they will swallow countless hours you could have spent writing, while offering no promise of creating something usable. In the end, I used a company called Creative Covers for the cover of False Ransom. Prices are competitive, turnaround is fast, and its knowledgeable owner, Ken Dawson, responds in a way that Midjourney never can.
PS. If you’re really up against it financially, you could try GetCovers, a Ukrainian company that provides customised covers for ridiculously low prices (ebook and book cover for $35.00). I haven’t used them so I can’t vouch for quality, but online reviews are positive (I’m not an affiliate of GetCovers or Creative Covers, and receive no payment from them).
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