Buried Under Book Covers by Joan Reeves

Image created with AI by Joan Reeves

I do apologize for missing my blogging date yesterday. I blame Artificial Intelligence for that.

Actually, I must take some blame too. It all started last week when I completed all of the  Facebook Ads training tutorials. I was pumped and ready to get going.

There was one thing holding me back. My book covers. I learned that the most successful book ads had cover art featuring men. 

Having a woman on the cover art gets men clicking but not to buy the book.

I wrestled with that intel until Monday when I decided to "just do it" and change out the book covers in question.

OMG! DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

After more than a week of trying to come up with cover art featuring an attractive male that organically represented the theme, story, etc. I'm ready to throw in the towel. Agh! So I waved the white flag of surrender and called my daughter the graphic artist for help. We meet tomorrow.

UNEXPECTED BENEFIT OF LOST TIME

One positive of this exhausting week was that I learned how to use an AI graphics program. Well, more or less learned. In many ways, it was harder than I expected and easier than I expected.

Harder? Because it requires far more hours of time and endless trial and error to create an image suitable for a book cover, i.e. an image that looks "real" and is specifically tailored to an element of the book.

Easier? Because with just a little effort you can create an interesting graphic good enough for marketing purposes. The image at the beginning of the post is one I made in about 5 minutes time. Of course, it took me about 4 hours of learning time to be able to make the image.

LAST THOUGHTS

I've always been willing to try new things and learn something new. However, I have conflicting emotions about using AI. I'm sure there are photographers and musicians who are also upset that AI is being used to create images that look like photographs and music that doesn't come from a real person.

I know I hate the thought that unscrupulous would-be writers will use AI to write novels. They're already doing it.

I will never do that. In fact, I think I'm going to put something in my book blurbs that goes something like this: "The content of this book was created entirely by the author, Joan Reeves. No artificial intelligence was used to create any part of the text."

I've heard other authors are inserting that into their blurbs and into the book's front matter. Do you think this is a good idea? As a reader, do you want to know that a real, live human created the book you're reading?

Image created with AI by Joan Reeves

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