Bookish Musings: AI Book Covers

 
 

I’m seeing more and more book covers with AI art lately, and it saddens me. And I don’t know how to fix the problem.

I’m mostly seeing it in indie and self-published books, presumably because those have smaller budgets. (If big publishers are doing this, they really have no excuse.) And I know writing books is hard work and can be really expensive, especially for small presses and self-pub authors. I have used my blog to support books of all budgets for all nine years that I’ve been running it so far, so trust me when I say I want them to succeed! I want people fall in love with their stories!

But I won’t knowingly support any book that uses AI art. Because that author or team is not supporting other creatives. Visual artists also need to make a living, and AI is hurting them. (I would say “us,” as I am an artist, but I don’t make money from my art, so I’m not being personally affected in this way.)


Why AI Art is Harmful

You might think, “An author who uses AI wasn’t going to be able to afford to commission art anyway, so no artist lost any money.” But even if that were true for every person who uses AI art for their covers, the very existence of AI art is hurting artists. It’s quick, it’s cheap/free, and yes, some of it is pretty. And so people have started to devalue artists even more than they already did. If they can get decent art for $10 in a day, why should they pay more and wait longer? Even people who could afford commissions start to use AI instead. And when artists do get hired, people treat them poorly with wildly unrealistic expectations.

But where does all the art used by AI came from? Artists. Who haven’t been paid for the way their art has been used. Who studied and practiced and worked hard for years to get good at art.

If you’re a writer, imagine if someone took your book and posted it all over free websites, and no one bought your book anymore, just pirated it, and then people started taking sentences, paragraphs, pages, maybe even entire chapters from your book and putting them into their books and claiming it all as their own, no credit to you. That’s what AI art is like.

People love art. You would be hard-pressed to find a person in the world who doesn’t love art in some form. And yet people disrespect and devalue the people who make that art.

And personally, I don’t want to look at AI art. What I like about visual art isn’t just that it’s pretty. It’s that a person put something of themselves into every line, every stroke, every splatter, every part of it. I’ll see a piece so intense and emotional that it’s hard to look at for more than a few seconds, and I know someone sat there with that art, with that emotion, the whole time they were making it. I’ll see something so incredible that I just marvel at the practice and dedication and skill. I’ll see something rough and unpolished and imperfect with messy lines and screwy proportions, but I’ll know someone cared enough about this that it drove them to pick up a pencil or a pen or a stylus or a paintbrush and try. I love that.

I do mean it when I say I’d prefer bad photo editing or stick figures than AI art. The proof is on my blog. Though I do enjoy pretty covers, some of my favorite books have forgettable or downright awful covers, and one of my all-time favorite games literally has stick figure art. And you can get nice covers for decent prices. Maybe not the most detailed, elaborate, realistic art, but still professional and pretty.

I’ve also read about how these AI art softwares are harming the environment because of the amount of energy they use, but I haven’t done enough research to talk in-depth about that myself.

How to Spot AI Art

First things first, please don’t go on witch hunts and start accusing artists. Art can have the things I mention below and still be made by a human. Or it can have none of the things I mention and still be AI. Unfortunately, that’s just yet another reason AI art is so harmful. It makes it harder to tell what is legit and results in real artists sometimes being accused. These tips are not meant to encourage that, but rather to try and help people understand and make informed decisions about what they support.

Because I know that even people who want to avoid supporting AI art simply can’t tell sometimes, so they end up supporting AI art unknowingly. Some authors are getting tricked, hiring someone or purchasing a pre-made cover. I’m certain even I don’t always notice when art is AI.

There are some styles that are just common in AI art, which is usually what I notice first. But here are a few specific things you can look for, in portraits at least:

  • Things or parts of things that are blurry/smudgy for no apparent reason. (e.g. I saw a cover with ship rigging/ropes in the background, and I know nothing about ship rigging, but the ropes randomly connected into each other in smudgy blobs.)
  • Things that blend/meld into other things. (e.g. A shirt that blends into pants on one side. Hair that disappears into skin. Lips that become teeth.)
  • Strands of hair around the head that aren’t attached to anything.
  • Irises that aren’t circles, or the color bleeds into the white.
  • Eyes in general not making sense, especially the waterline (the part between lower lashes and eyeball) in more realistic images. Or each eye being a significantly different shape.
  • Teeth that don’t make sense.
  • AI has gotten better at hands, but you can check those too.
  • Visual artifacts. (e.g. Random smudgy squiggle in the corner. A couple random spots of color in the background.)
  • Images that are extra smooth and glowy. This even more than the others could be a real artist’s style, but combined with a bunch of other things, it could be a red flag.

If you do suspect a book cover is AI, I recommend next checking the Amazon sample or inside cover to find artist credit. No credit is a bad sign, and also, it’s not very nice to not credit the artist if there is one. If you do find an artist, look them up, because they might still turn out to be legit.

If you’re looking into an artist or cover design service and they’ve got a bunch of pre-made covers, each one with unique art, that’s almost guaranteed AI. Especially if you can’t find any other art by the designer elsewhere, like on social media or art sites. Artists who make book covers generally do not pre-make them, and it will usually be apparent that they are an artist because they will post art somewhere other than just their cover design site.

If you are looking to hire an actual artist, maybe try looking on social media for someone whose art you like and who does commissions, and see if they do covers. If you can find other art of theirs, especially in-progress work, sketches, speed draws, etc., they’re probably legit. (Though it doesn’t mean they’re not legit if they don’t post those things.) Artists also tend to have one or a few different styles they stick to, not 10 wildly different styles, but again, that’s not a hard rule. If in doubt, try to find an artist friend who can weigh in.

A Few More Thoughts

If you do ever see me promoting something with AI art (or writing), feel free to email me or message me privately so that I can look into it. (Again, I do not want to start witch hunts.)

AI is, generally speaking, a really cool thing. There are so many ways it could make our world so much better! There are even some ways it can be ethically used to help artists by speeding up workflow or repetitive processes. But making people continue to do hard labor and hazardous, dangerous jobs and menial, mind-numbing tasks while AI takes over all the creative things that bring people joy and allow us to connect with each other, that’s not making the world better.

 
 
 
 

Talk to me!

Have you noticed more AI covers lately?
Do you have any other tips for spotting AI art or how to handle it when you're unsure?

 
 
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Your Thoughts

 

14 thoughts on “Bookish Musings: AI Book Covers

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  1. Roberta R.

    “People love art. You would be hard-pressed to find a person in the world who doesn’t love art in some form. And yet people disrespect and devalue the people who make that art.”
    So true!

    “But making people continue to do hard labor and hazardous, dangerous jobs and menial, mind-numbing tasks while AI takes over all the creative things that bring people joy and allow us to connect with each other, that’s not making the world better.”
    It should be the other way around, shouldn’t it? And yet.

    Thank you for making the effort to put this post together. One can see that it’s a labour of love, what with the research and actual time it must have taken to write it. I’m scared that AI-generated images will become more and more hard to tell from the legit ones, but at least until then, I’ll check on your post when in doubt and treasure your tips!

    1. Kit (Metaphors and Moonlight)

      It really should be the other way around.

      It is hard to tell what’s an AI image sometimes, and getting harder. I hate it. And I hate that we have to be on such high alert all the time if we want to spot it. I can actually send you some examples of AI art if you ever want it.

  2. Tammy @ Books, Bones & Buffy

    I’ve seen a few instances of authors with big publishers finding out their cover art was AI and they insisted the publisher change the cover, so that’s good because it brings attention to how harmful AI artwork can be. It all makes me mad, how AI is starting to take over so many things😬

  3. Kristina

    I’m so tired of everything AI nowadays.. even scams!! We evolved enough to get scammed by our own darn voices! 🤦🏽‍♀️

    We see AI art everywhere nowadays it seems.. and it equally pisses me off. Especially knowing the amount of power is needed for this stupid thing! Furthermore taking real artists’ work to train it, which creates art stealing on top of not giving jobs to real humans instead of a computer 💀

    the years really doesn’t go in amelioration, eh? We seems to be developping things for the worst! While there’d be so many good uses for it instead.. but ofcourse it’s not paying enough..

  4. Angela @ Literary Wanderer

    I am a self-proclaimed cover snob but I have to admit I don’t look carefully enough to know if something is AI or not. After reading your post, I am going to start looking more carefully!

  5. Karen

    What I don’t think people understand (& I can’t fathom how they don’t) is that all AI knowledge comes from PEOPLE. People who put in the effort to research & create. You are essentially piggybacking on their hard work and making a cheaper and inferior product without crediting or paying them. It’s stealing in my book.

    AI could be so useful for mundane things that could free up people’s time or make their job easier. I saw a librarian using the example of using AI to do tedious paperwork/cataloguing type tasks to free up time to interact with patrons.

    Great post with a lot of useful information as well.

    1. Kit (Metaphors and Moonlight)

      I think some people don’t understand, but some just don’t care. But yeah, all the AI art produced only exists because of artists.

      AI absolutely could be great for the mundane things no one wants to do, while people do the creative things they enjoy. Thanks!

  6. Beth W

    Good point, and thanks for bringing this up! I’ve been antsy about AI in the bookish space, but I hadn’t considered the use of it for book covers. I can’t imagine book covers are a very easy industry to break into or stay profitable in, for artists, so this hurts even more!