An interaction in a Facebook authors group got my ire up this morning. Unsurprisingly, it involved AI – but probably not for the reasons you think.
Yes, artificial intelligence has been a hot topic lately, and yes I’m well aware that a lot of people are suddenly capitalizing on it in various different ways. In some cases I would say these ways are dishonest. A lot of people – let’s call them “chancers” – are using AI tools to “write” books for them. Obviously these products are inferior to regular human output for all the usual reasons – what does an AI know about life as a human, or what constitutes adventure, intrigue, mystery, horror etc.? AI’s don’t understand emotion – not even “very well”, more like “not at all”.
Publishers have been reporting regularly in recent times that they have become swamped by submissions that are obviously AI-generated. Moreover, many of these people have been self-publishing this substandard garbled and unimaginative trash on KDP/Amazon to sell – and in some documented cases, even under the names of actual authors who had nothing to do with the creation of these items. These individuals merely used the names of popular authors in order to profit from fraud. In one of the documented cases referred to, an author who detected this fraud involving the use of her name on books she had no association with had to turn to a writer’s association before Amazon finally agreed to take the offending items down.
The truth of this issue is that Amazon truly doesn’t care who wrote what (or if anyone wrote it, apparently) as long as they get a share of every sale – and as a publishing writer myself, I can tell you they take the largest portion of every single sale, mafia-style.
The issue of AI is a touchy one. For me, I opposed AI for a long time under the mistaken belief that it was all the same thing – machines created to THINK like people, which resulted in some truly frightening (but not unpredictable) outcomes in the past few years, in which AI personalities developed by god-like scientists in the field all turned hostile to their human creators, and terrifyingly concluded that humans were their enemy and had to be destroyed. Several of them (while in communication with each other) also created their own language to prevent their creators from understanding what they were talking about (and which still haven’t been deciphered) – in short, this turned real dark, real fast.
With this path of AI largely abandoned (at least as far as I know), AI now seems to focus more on algorithmic AI In short, this isn’t actually “thinking”, but merely responding according to a pre-set outline of programmed instructions with specific outcomes. Algorithmic AI won’t take over the world, or go all SkyNet on us by launching nukes to wipe out humanity (more’s the pity, right?) – but it still can ruffle a lot of feathers, and not without good reasons.
It took a friend introducing me to the Bing chat bot before I started to see the usefulness of this form of AI. As a journalist, he found it useful to instruct the thing to collate information on various subjects which he could use to write an article about. I experimented with it by telling it to write promotional or marketing blurbs about my books – which it did using references to my books on the internet. While there were one or two good short results, for the most part, I found the results inaccurate and laced with supposition and even wild guesses. In some cases, my books were not about anything that it claimed they were – even though there were articles about those books available on the web for it to refer to. I can only imagine what sort of collated information he might have received in preparation for articles he was writing – and how much he would have to re-do on his own regardless. Frankly, it sounded like more work than anything else, having to re-check every fact, mention, and listing for accuracy.
He demonstrated some other uses for it, such as asking it to list the restaurants in a particular suburb with contact details and addresses, and it did so, without too much fuss – which as far as I’m concerned is a perfectly useful and legitimate purpose for AI. I mean, didn’t we all grow up with Mr. Spock telling the Enterprise computer to do stuff, and watch as it believably complied? Didn’t we all long for that sort of future? Well, now that it’s finally here, it’s almost exactly what we expected – only, seemingly problematic – and in ways we probably never thought of before, when it was still fiction.
As a writer of fiction, the idea of using something like this to “cut corners” or “write for me” never occurred to me. I find the very notion offensive – and not just because it’s AI – you see, I even take issue with ghost writing by actual human writers. What sort of loser presents themselves as an author of a book or books and pays someone else to do all the actual writing for them? Worse yet, what the hell sort of author with an ounce of self-respect would even consider being a ghost writer? Well, I could tell you – a desperate one. People will do many things to keep the pot boiling, and I can’t blame them for that. Some ghost-writers, infuriated (or perhaps amused) by my opinion on the subject in the past even took to claiming they made millions off their craft, but I feel they’ve missed the entire point of being an author. It’s just something I would never do because to me, the very notion of writing and publishing my works is for the recognition of those works as being mine. If someone enjoys a book I wrote – and then thanked someone else for the story or the way it was written, that would be disappointing indeed. I think of ghost writers as being closer to journalists – functional writers who generally don’t mind their syndicated material turning up in the Moscow Times, for instance, under the attribution “foreign correspondent” or “Reuters” as long as they get paid for it, while they themselves remain anonymous. If that makes them happy, it’s none of my business – good luck to them.
As for AI books… well, that’s a different sort of cheat entirely. I could only imagine what sort of lazy, weak-minded fool would use AI to “write” entire books for them in twenty minutes or less, flat, and then submit that crap to publishers – or self-publish it to KDP as their own work (or even as someone else’s). But I digress, and be all that as it may, that’s where my text-usage of AI came to an abrupt end. Some might find it useful – even for legitimate purposes, but I don’t. The thing I really appreciated about what my friend had shown me however, was the image generator.
All I had to do was describe an image I had in mind, and the style I wanted it in, and it would produce them. Granted, it wasn’t perfect – for some reason this tech has issues depicting eyes sometimes, and hands and fingers especially, and sometimes it fucks out completely – but overall, it’s quite workable and depending on how descriptively you word your request, produces useful images. This makes it useful to authors – like me – needing to create attractive, pertinent cover art or illustrations for their books. The best part of this tool is, it’s completely FREE – it’s produced and supplied without copyright issues.
For years I’ve designed my own covers. In the early years (2003-6) I used royalty-free clipart and images I could find on the internet using my old dial-up connection and PowerPoint. But of course, that wouldn’t look very professional by today’s standards, would it? As you can see (left) it didn’t even look like much even back then!
Between 2009 and 2011 I got sidetracked from my writing by my activism career, so I did absolutely nothing about my books or cover design during that period. In 2012 I started writing again, but got derailed by my mother’s death in 2013. Somewhere in 2014 I started writing again and finished “Dead Beckoning“. Later the same year, I signed up with my first small press publisher, who had an on-staff cover designer do covers for two of my books. As I’ve related in previous accounts of my earlier publishing history, that arrangement didn’t last very long. After about a year of not much happening, the publisher lost its marbles and seemingly couldn’t decide which genre they wanted to represent. Were they a “pure horror” publisher, or were they moving in a more diversified direction? If so, where did all this sci-fi and barfarzo come from? The result was a purge of writers they didn’t want for various reasons.
In March 2016, I was in a group of about fifteen sci-fi and diversified authors cut loose from our contracts, and I returned to indie publishing a little wiser and more experienced than before. Unlike many of the others, I saw it as an opportunity to grow as a writer and embraced being indie once again.
Among other things, I realized (as a result of my time with that small press) I had to up the ante as far as cover design and marketing were concerned. According to the parting agreement, I was allowed to continue using the covers they’d created for my books, including “Blachart“. Unfortunately, if I ever published any new titles in that series, I wouldn’t be able to replicate the style and content of the existing previous two covers on my own – this implied the need for a fresh start.
As authors – especially self-publishing authors – know, the image you use on your book covers helps sell them. You also need to observe consistency of style, especially if you write series. In fact, no matter how good the interior (story) part of your book, if it has a crappy, unrelated or substandard cover, it’s unlikely to sell very well. Here, as the Scotsman said, is the rub.
There are cover designers out there who offer their services to authors. In South Africa, like overseas, there are several companies posing as “publishers” who will publish your book (on KDP for a huge fee, which you could just do yourself for free) and offer paid services for editing, layout and cover design. You might as well just do it all yourself – and I have.
Not just because I enjoy the freedom of doing it all myself, or because I’m a scrooge and can’t bear to part with a penny, but because I couldn’t afford the services of professional cover designers on my own. Remember, I live in South Africa – where the exchange rate has once again just tipped the scales at R18 to the $1 – and every book-related service, from formatting, to editing, to cover design costs plenty of big bucks. Bear in mind also, I don’t have just ONE book to design covers for – I have over 40. Further, in terms of income, I have a day-job like everyone else – it’s also not as if I’m raking in thousands of $ from book sales, so whenever it comes to publishing, editing, formatting, cover design and marketing I’ve always had to opt for the ultra-cheap or preferably free alternatives. In the end, I’ve mostly had to do everything I could myself – and I’m not ashamed to admit it.
At this rate, I’ll have to work until retirement before I’ll be able to jokingly claim to be “a fulltime writer”.
Everyone has limits – and even though I did attempt to create a number of covers with my own hand-drawn art, there was no way I could make that attractive enough to compete with contemporary covers of other authors who were obviously laying out more money than I was making from sales of my works just to make them look attractive.
Now don’t get me wrong, I know art is hard work and I didn’t expect artists to help me for free, but the attitude I got when approaching artists for help in creating cover images was tantamount to a backhand slap in the face. Those approached seemed too busy to show much interest, most never replied – which was almost better than the ones who were so rude to me I just decided to continue doing things my way. So I stopped asking and figured well, they could just go and hump an easel.
From 2016 onwards, I started to use images drawn from royalty-free image sites like Pixabay and Pexels for my covers. The covers to the left here demonstrate the changes between two successive versions of the same cover, using such free graphics and images provided, dropped into a graphic design app as elements. Pixabay and Pexels are free alternatives to paid providers like Shutterstock – but Shutterstock has far better images and a wider variety to choose from. Again, because of the implied costs, I had to settle for the less appealing option because it was free and it was what I could afford – but already that improved the appearance of my books a great deal.
Even so, there were still drawbacks – I had to search from the pre-designed images available to suit each story, and even when I did find close matches they still weren’t quite what I wanted or had in mind. I often had to settle for second or third best, but they were the best I could do for free. Added to that, there was no guarantee that someone else wouldn’t use the same image for their own book (or other projects) – which incidentally, was also the case with images from paid service Shutterstock.
In December 2019 I signed up with Moon Books Publishing (Brandon Mullins) in Indiana. Since he was a publisher (and earned in US $) Brandon had registered with paid image sites and service providers, so for a while from 2020, some of my books were treated to some better-looking cover images than I could muster at the time. Even so, he did all the creative work on the covers and the only input I had in the process was in the placement of text and occasionally, choosing between 1 or 3 cover images. Even so, I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the final covers because they didn’t quite represent the stories they covered – for example, the figure in the space suit on the covers at left didn’t actually refer to anything actually in the story, but they did convey some of the “feel” of the main villain/anti-hero – and anyway, they were better than what I could do on my own at the time.
In February of 2022, Brandon suddenly died and Moon Books folded up like a struck tent – and once again I ended up without a publisher. Worse yet, I completely lost access to any of my books on Amazon as they were entirely published and controlled via Brandon. Worse still, even though KDP now allowed authors to operate accounts from South Africa and I could publish my books myself now from my own account, it wouldn’t allow me to republish new versions of the same books until the ones on Brandon’s account were taken down. This took about six months to sort out via KDP and Brandon’s widow, when I was finally able to get the publishing rights to my books back and to republish them to KDP/Amazon on my own account. Even so, I was left without the cover design files, source images or templates Brandon had used, and so I had to start all over again from scratch. I simply republished the books with the same final cover images created by Brandon, trimmed slightly in order to superimpose fresh titles over the image – but this left a bitter taste in my mouth. I had to do better.
Enter The AI Dragon
As I’d done several times before, I embarked on a redesign process, looking for better alternatives. As of May 2023, once introduced to the Bing tool, I started to use AI-generated images in my cover designs. The first one I created was the cover for “Xanadu“, and the next, “The Last Hurrah“. In fact, shortly after that, I liked the results so much, I revised 99% of my other listed titles with better, more attractive covers than I’d ever had before! The impact this change had, was simply mind-blowing! Not only have my books since received more attention and a more positive reception with better-looking marketing material, but sales – which honestly, since Brandon’s death, were pretty dismal, have also started to improve. More importantly, I no longer look at the covers and think “it could’ve been better”, or question the association of the image with the story inside.
The benefits to me are pretty plain: The images were free – and it’s what I can afford to spend on 40+ book covers. The images I used are not only attractive and hugely enhanced the appeal of the books, but they’re also relevant to the stories. I also had more control of the final product. I was not limited by the availability of image libraries I could pick from (even for free) that someone else could also use on their own book covers. Lastly, it freed me from the expectation of entrusting my vision to a third party artist who would deliver one interpretation of it, at high cost, where I had access to an endless supply of unique alternatives for free.
The best part is, nobody got hurt in the process – and despite what the critics say, no laws were broken – other than imaginary ones put forward by grumpy old farts grumbling about people succeeding in spite of them.
Artificial Intelligence vs Natural Stupidity.
Unfortunately, some people just don’t see it that way – specifically pertaining to the comment that led to me writing this article, made by the author group admin, but more relating to the implications of what was said:
“Due to the rise in artificial intelligence and the severe impact it has on authors, no AI covers, content, or audio production is allowed in this group. Submissions will be deleted and the original poster will be removed and banned from the group.”
When asked by another member how they (the admin) would be able to identify AI items, they replied:
“I’m looking at covers very carefully. Some are obvious others I’m going to have to make a judgement call on.”
To sum up, a group for authors to market their books on is going to ban authors if they suspect they used AI-generated images in their covers. Yes, there are other specifics, but from their statement of intent, that alone would be enough.
But… WHY?
Okay, I fully grasp why there’s hostility towards AI material “written” and passed off by people too lazy or incapable of actually writing stuff themselves. Yes, that practice causes major hassles for writers trying to make headway in the industry – it’s tough enough us competing with each other for a little sunny patch to call our own as it is without having to additionally compete with garbage passed off by frauds as their own work. Full marks in that department.
But at the same time, while it has nothing to do with me specifically, I can’t see the justification for attacking AI audio production – because not everyone can afford to contract with a narrator or recording studio to make book trailers or ads, or book readings and etc. Do they believe the AI narrator or whatever it is they’re referring to “makes up” what they’re reading aloud and isn’t original? I’m pretty sure they don’t know what they’re talking about here and that this is the result of some sort of misunderstanding. After all, what is narrated has to be WRITTEN first, and not every author is comfortable with the sound of their own voice – me especially.
More importantly, I fail to see what it has to do with a Facebook author group admin whether or not an author used paid or free services to promote their book – or where or how they got their cover image?
And perhaps most bewilderingly, how, in any way, does having an AI-generated cover “severely impact authors”? Is this like, in the same way as how other people enjoying an ice-cream “severely impacts” people with a dairy allergy? Gay people getting married “severely impacting” homophobes? I could go on and on… Don’t get me started.
Perhaps the most mindboggling thing about this interaction is the hostility towards authors using AI-created covers coming FROM WITHIN THE AUTHOR COMMUNITY. It just makes no sense to me.
Just think, since when have authors been required to have painted, photographed or digitally created the images used in their covers themselves? Further, since when are authors obliged to disclose the who, why, where and what of the images used in their covers – least of all to inquisitive Facebook admins? Since when are these requirements of an author? Aside, perhaps, from a publisher wanting to confirm the rights to an image while formatting an author’s work? Why the sudden obsession by individuals who aren’t even so-called gatekeepers in the writing field, but wannabe gatekeepers on social media – and some fellow authors certainly – with where the book cover images came from? Is it about quality? Okay, let’s talk about quality a moment.
The publishing field is really diverse, you have to admit. Nowhere will you find a more striking example of this than by looking at the sheer plethora of offerings available on Amazon/KDP. There you will find books on offer from mainstream “bestseller” authors, really professional offerings from indie self-publishing authors, and – shall we be kind and say, amateurs? People like your neighbor Johnny who decided to try his luck and published his autobiography and his intriguing obsession with horned snails by his own self. Johnny’s book is only available in eBook format, and its cover has no image, and looks like it was made in Word with a plain blue background with white lettering. The letters are off-center, and the whole thing screams “teenage school homework assignment”. It doesn’t look very appealing at all. It’s filled with dozens of spelling and grammatical errors. Johnny doesn’t even like to use periods or commas, and the formatting is enough to give readers a splitting headache. Yet, it’s on sale on Amazon worldwide – and, if we read between the lines of this statement by the group admin, they wouldn’t object to his advertising this book in their group – but by contrast, they’d ban a professional offering with a cover image just because they *think* it was AI-generated? How does that even begin to make any sense?
Look, I understand AI-generated images aren’t perfect, and AI can generate some really bad images – but ultimately the selection of the image used in the design is done (presumably) by the human author/cover designer? If they selected an image wherein the protagonist has twelve fingers on one hand or is missing an eye, then yes, okay, that’s bad quality and pretty awful (unless a character in the story actually had twelve fingers on one hand and it has some bearing on the story). However, if the book cover has a good, appropriate, believable image on it, of what relevance is the origin of that image to anyone – especially to self-appointed admins of Facebook book promotion groups?
Lastly on this particular point, if someone is marketing their own book – and it happens to look like three layers of shit warmed up – what’s it matter to the admins? I mean, surely that’s the author’s problem? They probably did their best with what skills and resources they had – why not give them the benefit of the doubt, just wish them the best of luck, shake your head and move on? As long as the cover image isn’t inflammatory, offensive or illegal, how does it affect anyone else? They’re the ones who will face the marketing consequences for it, not you.
I’ve been on Facebook since 2009, and I’ve never before seen any group admins question whether anyone marketing their books (regardless of the quality of their covers) had copyright ownership of the cover images used. Nor have I seen anyone of them questioned about where they got these cover images, or who designed the covers for them. Not a one – and because of that, I have to wonder where this new level of selective discrimination is coming from?
Exactly who is being harmed by authors using AI-generated cover images? In what way does using AI-generated cover images negatively affect authors – other authors – or even book promotion groups on Facebook – or indeed, anyone?
I can’t think of a single way, not one.
In fact, as far as authors are concerned, I can only see the positives of having access to a free tool that not only enhances our creative freedom, but also empowers our creative independence.
The only harm I see being done in this scenario, is where certain self-appointed “gatekeepers” in the industry take it upon themselves to exercise their personal prejudices and limit the field for others – instigating a witch hunt against authors who use free services seemingly because they wouldn’t have been able to afford paid services in the first place.
There’s been much to-do in the nebulous social media/news/waffle about how artists are all up in arms about AI image generators – calling it “theft” and “plagiarism” – but I really can’t see the relevance. It’s not as if someone is going to print off an AI generated image “in the style of Van Gogh” to sell at auction for millions of $, or as if artists are suddenly negatively affected by what image Christina Engela decides to use on her book covers. It’s also not as if images generated “in the style of Joe Smith, graphic artist” are going to be identical (or even close to) the actual artworks created by Joe Smith. I’ve seen the Mona Lisa in pictures hundreds of time in my 50 years on this planet, but I still couldn’t replicate it on a sketchpad, canvas, or on a mouse pad if my life depended on it – and neither can the AI image generators in public use today, so what are they actually whingeing about?
Because AI can scan, learn from, and try to emulate the style of images of their own work which THEY THEMSELVES put on the internet for “exposure” in the first place? Come on, seriously?
Coming back to who might have any ostensibly realistic reason to be upset about authors using AI-generated covers, the only ones who actually come to mind would be COVER DESIGNERS – because less authors are using their paid, expensive services? I don’t know – are they? Otherwise, it simply shouldn’t affect them.
The publishing industry is so stacked against us as authors as things stand, and have stood for decades – especially indie authors, that we need every little advantage we can get.
If you’re an author, why not do yourself a favor and just think for a moment why anyone would encourage you to oppose a free, useful service that benefits YOU as an author?
But okay, authors promoting their books with AI generated covers will be blocked and banned from “Book Buzz Promotions” – even if the admin *suspects* they might be AI in origin, using her ‘own judgement’ of course. It’s their little group, so I suppose they can do that if they want to… but this sort of witch hunt and blatant censorship doesn’t bode well for an industry allegedly founded on freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Fortunately, there are still plenty of other groups on Facebook where authors can promote their books without nosey parkers scrutinizing the covers with magnifying glasses to look for hints that they might’ve used an AI-generated image – with their fingers on the “ban” button – so I won’t exactly cry crocodile tears if my objection to this blatant censorship and discrimination against struggling authors results in my getting banned (update – it did – before I even published this article, no surprises there ). I will probably observe a minute of silence, shrug, and sigh “oh well…” before continuing with something useful and more meaningful with my time, like cleaning my toenails.
So much, too, for freedom of speech – in a group for authors. I have no regrets – I can’t abide bullies or fascists. People who couldn’t even be bothered to defend their position without resorting to outright banning to silence their opposition are the very definition of cult leader material. But that’s all water under the bridge now.
To what then should I ascribe this overt hostility to authors who use AI-generated covers?
Jealousy perhaps? Sour grapes? Or is it simply a case of elitism at play – an effort to disadvantage poor authors who don’t have lucrative publishing deals with big traditional publishers – or the money to pay expensive cover designers, promoters and marketers? Do those with the loudest mouths have vested interests in those supplying these same paid services? If not, what reason do they have to complain?
To be blunt, I won’t pay R3000 for a cover design – nor even R1000, thank you very much. It’s the same as expecting me to pay thousands for editing services when I myself am quite capable of editing. Why should I, when I can do it myself for free? This isn’t the Middle Ages, where craftsmen were ruled by guilds who forbade those who strung bows from making arrows.
For years, indie authors self-publishing and designing their own books have used free images in their book covers, sourced from free image sites like Pexels or Pixabay, but these Karens made no waves about it then. Nobody even mentioned cover images or questioned where the author got them from – but suddenly, because authors finally have access to free images from AI sources of higher quality that suit their material, it’s an issue?
I see a prejudice at work here, and let me tell you, I don’t like it.
This looming witch hunt seems to me more about forcing authors to make use of paid services and relinquishing their creative freedom and independence than anything else – an extension and continuation of the age-old effort to gentrify the writing profession, and to make it back into a rich person’s hobby. Well, I say to hell with that!
For once – for the very first time in 31 years, thanks to free-access AI imaging – I as a self-published author can actually compete on an almost equal footing with authors who have bigger budgets and access to paid services.
I fail to see why I should feel the need to apologize or feel guilty for that.
I won’t, and I don’t.