So, I’m not active on social media, other than the fact that I browse in lots of reading groups. Apparently, this has led people to believe that I’m not… real? That my books are written by computers?
Nah, every wild, nasty word on those pages comes straight from my brain.
Story time.
When I first decided to write my novellas, I had a picture in my mind of what I wanted my covers to look like. I’m visually creative, and even had examples drawn out of what I was looking for to help cover artists get inside my wacky brain.
I emailed over 70 artists. Of these, around a dozen responded to me. Of these, three stayed in contact after the initial round of emails. I picked one, sent them my reference materials, PAID THEM, and never heard back.
Okay, I’ll move on.
I sent the second my images, PAID THEM, and what I got back was lower quality than the references I emailed them to begin with. In order for them to change them, they wanted to be paid again.
Okay, I’ll move on.
My next attempt was one of those cheap, big websites that offers to do your cover for like, $49 or something. It was AWFUL.
Okay, I’ll move on.
Fourth artists, when I explained my experience so far, also said that if I wasn’t happy with what she produced, anything outside of minor edits would cost another full payment. She seemed very confident in her work, so, what did I do? PAID HER.
Are you seeing a trend here? Figured out where this is going?
At this point, I was out over $700 in unusable covers. So, I hiked up my big girl panties, and jumped over to Canva to see what I could do on my own. Did I use AI to generate my covers? Yep. Was it as simple as putting some words in a generator and hitting copy? No, no, it was not.
I spent DAYS putting together dozens of images, drawing and shading to make them blend, and honestly, it was kind of laughable at first how bad it was. But then I thought… you know, I’ll just embrace it.
The images inside the books were made because I was having fun helping to visualize what I was writing about, and I thought others might appreciate seeing it. Even if the quality was questionable, at best.
I didn’t realize for a long time what the issue with using AI was, and was floored to find my name being dragged through the mud several months later. But no one-not a single person-understood the headache I’d been through attempting to get my covers created.
So, I reached back out to another group of artists to redraw my work. Of this group of twenty-ish, I got three responses. One had great reviews, plenty of portfolio work, and so, I hired her. I PAID HER $750 to redo my pictures. I have no idea if that’s a fair rate, or cheap, or expensive, because at this point no one is being responsive in the least and I have a giant ol’ chip on my shoulder.
This artist was paid mid-January, I haven’t gotten a single response, so I’m writing it off as another loss.
So, before you jump on small, indie artists for using technology to fill in the gaps of their abilities, maybe hold your other artists to the same standard. There should be zero reason why I’m out $1500 with nothing to show for it. I did my due diligence, I checked out reviews and portfolios. I was nice, and easy to work with, because at heart I’m a people pleaser and I wanted nothing more than to build a mutually beneficial relationship.
I’ve since done some research and realized how AI can hurt the artistic community, and I’ve removed all the images from my books and covers. The images in my books are now made using stock photos and a sketch filter as I continue to try to find an artist to work with.
We’re all humans. Let’s be kind to each other.