Stop Cheating Yourself

As a writer, more so than a publisher, the thing that pains me the most when looking over someone's book is to see an AI-generated cover. 

The first draft of your book will take months, maybe even years. Everyone works at a different speed. But no matter how fast your brain works, if you’re putting all that time in to write a fully realized novel, you have something to be proud of. YOU did the work, and regardless of the quality of the finished product, readers will connect with that passion you had for writing it. That’s because you put forth the effort. You sacrificed so much time creating the lives your characters live out. 

So if you sacrificed that much already, why would you give up at the finish line?

When it comes to telling a story, the story is all that matters. But to get people to read that story, you need to sell it to them. And if they want me to buy it, that passion should be a part of every page of your book, including the front cover.

Recently, mostly in self-published works, I have seen too many people use AI to design their cover art. It is an immediate turn-off for me because it tells me that the author of that book didn’t write something for passion, they wrote it so they could make easy money. 

It also makes me think, if you took the easy way out with AI, how much of your book did you actually write? Did you write any of it?

I have no issue giving you my money, as long as you’re being genuine with what you’re selling.

Last year I tried being involved with a self-published writers group on Facebook. There were so many people that dripped with passion over 250 pages of their life’s work. Self-published writers – true self-published writers, that is – will give everything for their books and if they’re lucky, sell 100 copies, but more than likely, not even that much. Only 90% of self-publisher writers do. 

But there was this one guy in the group, who every other day had a new book up on Kindle. Every book was titled as either a major real-world event or named after a historical figure. Every book was about ten pages. And every book had the same formulaic plot. A person from the present day mysteriously travels back in time to interact with a historical event.

Sounds like “11/22/63” but I’ll let it slide.

Then I checked the “look inside” for two or three of these books. It was the most obvious use of AI I’d ever seen in my life. The plots weren’t just formulaic, the paragraphs and sentences were. At the time I’d been messing with Chat GPT to see what it was capable of, and these “books” had the exact same style as the AI program. Single sentence prompt and responses. No depth, no character, just “give me a book about time travel.”

For less than 20 pages of a story the guy didn’t even write, he was charging $10. 

When stuff like that started flooding Amazon, most people had enough sense to avoid it. But because of that, people are hopefully attuned to correlate AI “art” with laziness and cash grabs.

Reading stuff written by AI, or looking at pictures made by AI, it’s so clear there is a lack of depth to it. Real art, good or bad, has a soul. It has an honest intention by its creator.

If the first thing people see in your book is that you are lazy, why should they read it? Why do you deserve their money?

I’m well aware that some people turn to AI because either they aren’t good at graphic design, or a good designer is too expensive. I wish I could give some advice for an easy workaround, but my honest response is “Too bad.”

You care about your book right? You believe in it? You think it could hold its own on the NYT Bestseller list? Then put forth the effort. Either put down the money for a designer or teach yourself how to do it. Either way, there’s more heart in that because it says you sacrificed something.

But how is hiring a graphic designer any different than AI?

That graphic designer is another artist. They have a soul, and that soul will speak through their work. People will resonate with it if it comes from the heart. 

With Valenza Publishing’s designer, Matt Gunther, I put my complete trust in him. For “Empire” and “Lost World” I gave him these truly god-awful preliminary sketches I did, and the final product spoke for itself.

Matt went absolutely wild with things he wanted to try, for a book he didn’t even write. I’ve gotten too many compliments to count on the cover, and that’s what’s convinced so many people to pick up the book.

So believe me when I tell you, do not cheat yourself. Sacrificing a little bit more for what you're passionate about is worth it!