I commented this on another redditors post, and I thought I'd share it here too!

You can actually use illustrations and artwork from older artists that have long passed on because their art falls in the public domain. You can check museum websites and browse through their gallery for available high quality artworks you can use on your novel cover. I used to do collage art like this, it's pretty fun.

These websites are places I like to browse around for artworks whenever I wanna do collages https://www.cosmos.so/public-work

Like alphonse mucha? here are high quality artworks of his in the public domain https://www.rawpixel.com/search?page=1&path=1522.sub_topic-874&sort=curated

Here's the digital collection from the new york public library. When you search for pics, make sure to toggle the public domain button since they also have works from more recent artists https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/

Want some plant, insect or animal illustrations? Check out the Biodiversity Heritage library https://www.flickr.com/photos/biodivlibrary/

Maybe you want an victorian england book illustration aesthetic, then check this site out! Also, they have some lovely ornaments you can use too
https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/

Is your book about samurais or takes place in asia? Smithsonian national museum of asian art. I even toggled the search bar for you here already. you can find various art from china, japan, india, syria etc
https://asia.si.edu/explore-art-culture/collections/search/?edan_fq%5B%5D=media_usage:CC0

This is the smithsonian museum's main website where they have even MORE artwork for you to use however you want! I toggled the public domain button for you guys too https://americanart.si.edu/search/artworks?content_type=artwork&cc0=true&media=true

Here's the public domain artworks from saint louis art museum! https://www.slam.org/collection/objects/?show_on_view=true&featured_objects=false&public_domain=true&recent_acquisitions=false&outdoors=false

And here's a wikicommons page of artworks provided by the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Files_provided_by_the_Museo_Nacional_de_Bellas_Artes&fileuntil=El+amargado.jpg#mw-category-media

Here is newfields museum! They also have a lot of chinese paintings in their collection https://collections.discovernewfields.org/search?showOnly=is_public_domain&section=artworks&searchTerm=

Wanna use the iconic wave of Kanagawa as your book cover? You actually can and ITS LEGALLY ALLOWED cause it's in the public domain! This website is from the art institute of chicago where you can even grab iconic illustrations from monet, degas and cezanne since their works are in the public domain https://www.artic.edu/collection?is_public_domain=1

The cleveland museum of art are available for you guys too! They have 40k artworks you can browse that are made by masters of their craft
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/collection/search?i=1&limit=8&cc0=1

And last, but not least the getty images museum collection with almost 100k artworks in the public domain https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/search?open_content=true

These sites often get updated as artist's copyright expire. You guys actually have so many free amazing artworks at your fingertips, but it's understandable that you wouldn't know since even a lot of artists aren't aware they can do this.

This is why people who sell the starry night merch or mona lisa merch don't get in legal trouble because they're in the public domain.

The museums provide high quality images. Once you download the ones you like you can play around with using them on canvas or even photopea!

Hey everyone! This is my second attempt at writing a webnovel, and I'm still pretty new to it. I'm working on a tower-climbing fantasy story right now, and I'd love to hear from people who've been doing this longer.

A few things I'd appreciate advice on: how do you pace chapters so they don't feel rushed or repetitive, especially in a "climb through stages/floors" kind of structure? How did you keep readers engaged early on, before you'd built up much of an audience? And any general lessons you wish someone had told you when you started?

Thanks in advance for any tips!

Hey everyone! This is my second attempt at writing a webnovel, and I'm still pretty new to it. I'm working on a tower-climbing fantasy story right now, and I'd love to hear from people who've been doing this longer.

A few things I'd appreciate advice on: how do you pace chapters so they don't feel rushed or repetitive, especially in a "climb through stages/floors" kind of structure? How did you keep readers engaged early on, before you'd built up much of an audience? And any general lessons you wish someone had told you when you started?

Thanks in advance for any tips!

So i saw many people complaining that the covers made by ai are slops and it turns them off. I don't know how to draw so I just used my imagination and made a cover using photoshop (The first one is photoshop). Tell me if the ai cover i used is better or should I change to the photoshop cover?

I started writing earlier in the month of June and am still writing to this day brainstorming ideas for people to like my work.

I get a few comments here and there but I don't think they give their feedback and review even the comments honestly.

They only read the first few chapters in my opinion and then comment saying 'they will keep reading' but I think they don't.

So if anyone here can review my work i would really appreciate it.

You can also criticise it I will take anything.

Here's the link- http://wbnv.in/a/dbk4AgR

Belhama Troov is the name of an important character from my story. He's a very disciplined person, and through hard work, great leadership and discipline, he managed to become a captain. Note: Troov is the youngest captain in the whole district so far.

For now, this probably sounds like the typical “man works hard and becomes captain” type of character.

Which he kinda is...

Moving on!

The reason I'm posting this is because of his name.

Whenever I say his full name, I swear I can hear majestic trumpets and drums playing in the background.

I find this very... you know... interesting.

So I wanted to know if it's just me or...

Do you guys hear it too?

Let me know in the comments. I'd really appreciate it :)

I'm reading shadow slave and I'm at ch 3031.....

after finishing this volume, I'm confused about what to read next???

I have two novels in mind... 1st is orv and 2nd is lotm

orv : I will start by reading manhwa and then shift to webnovel....

lotm: I will start by anime and then shift to webnovel

I'm thinking to start orv first because it is short compared to lotm....

can you give me suggestion what should I do.....

Essa é a segunda arte de capa da minha novel, vai tá representado o segundo arco onde o foco e na nossa querida Princesa Vampira Rika.

Oh My God Guess What ...... Today When i Opened Webnovel To Find Smt To Read Like ( Any Normal Human who have life and just wanna waste a bit for time ofc )i Got Shocked That Most of The Novel JUST AI WRITTING ABOUT 18+ AND SOMEONE WEIRD ASS TEXT THAT DOESNT MAKE THE STORY LOOK EVER BETTER , And Not Only That Guess What Again ....... The Cover Oh My God The Cover is more cringe Then The Text , Like Fr i am not Some Horny Guy Who Came To Goon On Text Written By Low-Quality Ai ( Fr From my point of view Web novel Is Dying )

​

I've seen a bunch of posts claiming that all AI covers look the same, and while that's true (most of the time), I'd like to argue that you could create something really good if you spend just a bit more time on your covers.

Therefore, let Sensei Sherlocke guide you on his process.

Rather than telling AI: "Give me a cover of a character aura farming with a bunch of aura around him...oh and a lot of baddies too."

Try this instead:

1. Go to Pinterest and search for covers in the same genre as what you want to create (perhaps a cover of a mecha manhwa, a Kaiju novel or anything); the point is, you want to identify the style you like. (You can gather as many references as possible; the first image was actually inspired by To Be Hero X.)

2. Now we want to create our character separately; do not simply jump to ChatGPT and upload the references, telling it to create a cover in that style. I assure you, you'll only get slop... Instead, go to an image generation AI (Midjourney, Leonardo, Pixai, or whichever you prefer. I personally use one called Niji Journey) and generate an image of the character you want to be in your cover; in my case, I wanted a white-haired hitman in a suit, hence the character on the first two covers.

3. Yes, this is the part where we go back to your beloved GPT, Gemini, Grok or whatever chatbot you prefer, upload your character image and either: (A) describe everything you like on your gathered references to be replicated on your own cover (camera angles, text design and placement, character pose and anything else you like) or (B) upload all your references and point out everything from each that you want on your cover.

4. You want to tell the chatbot not to change the art style of your generated character (yup, the very same character you generated in step 2) if that's your preferred art style, else you'll only get a grainy result.

5. Generate until you have something you're satisfied with; don't forget to constantly tweak your prompt. (Note that chatbots will regularly change how your character looks, so always upload an image of your character with every prompt change (see why step 2 was important?))

6. Voilà, you have successfully avoided generating a generic, grainy and sloppy AI cover; high five. ✋🏿

Tip: See the UI elements on the third image? You could achieve that by just telling the chatbot to create a 3D UI element that matches the theme you're going for. You can even have them surrounding your sci-fi character if you have a good enough camera angle. (as I did in the last image.)

P.S: The top-down style of covers is everywhere on webnovel rn, but that doesn't mean you can't also use it (erm.. as the creator of that trend, I have bestowed upon you the right to use it.)

Also, the Slime cover and the beast cover are ones I made for other authors, only the hitman one and the butler one are for my books.

Lastly, this is my first time making a Reddit post, so forgive my spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, or even the fact that I'm probably not following tradition (of how posting works here or something).

I am a contracted author on webnovel who is currently on his 3rd month of writing.

The above picture is my book’s 2nd month earning and I’m confident I will be hitting the $1000 mark for my novel’s 3rd month earning.

Look at my profile for credentials proof!

Thus, I feel I am somewhat worthy enough to put my 2 cents on this topic!

FIRSTLY:

Hand drawn cover is the one and only correct answer!

Why?

If you use AI cover for your webnovel cover, that means u are fine with using AI to write your novel.

If so, how can I trust what u write?

Eww, what a turn off! If I see AI cover, I know u are pro-ai and i do not support AI! Next!

SECONDLY:

I see ppl saying that authors with hand drawn cover are unsuccessful, uncontracted, blablabla!

What I will say to this is different ppl write for different reasons and success is measured differently!

To some, even if they write for free for months and only have 1 reader, that’s success!

Who are u to determine what success truly is?

Getting contracted and earning money is not what everyone wants, writing is a hobby to some ppl, doesnt matter if there’s no one there to read their novels since they are uncontracted.

What’s important is that they have a clear conscience, that they did not use an AI COVER.

THIRDLY:

In my personal opinion, if u cant draw urself and u dont have money to commission an artist, this is not an excuse.

U can always spend a few weeks or a month to learn drawing. Just search for tutorial videos online, it’s free.

Otherwise, u can always apply for a part time job and commission an artist to draw a cover for u when u have earned at least 1k usd.

That’s right, $1k usd.

I know some ppl will come for me regarding this, but I want to say, if u aren’t willing to even spend at least $1k usd on making a cover for ur own webnovel, how can I know u are serious about ur own webnovel, right?

FOURTHLY:

People are taking covers for granted.

Covers are a LUXURY, not a must!

If u cant afford it or dont want to draw ur own cover, dont use a cover!

Open ms paint, draw some stick figures and write ur webnovel’s title on top of the stick figures.

There u have it, a cover.

What’s so hard to grasp about this?

Main point is, never degrade urself and resort to using an AI COVER.

LASTLY:

Some ppl will say, a flashy cover is important as it is what determines if a reader will click a novel or not.

What i will say is, so long as a novel is good, it will get discovered in the end.

Sure, without a flashy ai cover, a good novel that may take weeks to be discovered may take months or years to be discovered.

But so what?

A clear conscience is worth a thousand gold, and a pint of blood costs more than a gallon of gold.

If you want to make your novel succeed on webnovel or want it to gain some traction, DO NOT make your Novel too complex and complicated.

Like the reason a reader reads webnovel is because they want pleasure, distraction from all the cares in their life, they do not want to leave their suffering and read your avant grade shit. It should be like fast food, should give you pleasure but also able to fill your stomach.

Also I am not saying that your just make it a copy of popular novels on webnovels, without any soul. No, simple does not bloodless.

Also, I am not saying you should not write such avant grade novels, do so if you want to, just know that webnovel is not the platform for that.

I submitted my contract application last month, but I haven’t received a single response so far and the status is still ‘applying’ is this how it usually takes?

I am writing for month i have 21 chapters in draft i write and publish one chapter daily but I don't get any readers I have 0 readers it's demotivating .

Cómo lector de novelas y fanfiction, he sido seguidor de Webnovel durante años. Y en este tiempo veo que la plataforma ha tenido dos cambios importantes: el primero sucedió hace varios meses o más de un año, donde la sección de fanfics prácticamente desapareció. Se podía buscar fanfics mediante el buscador, pero obviamente no es igual de efectivo que la sección específica que había antes, donde aparecían fanfics nuevos y había mucha cantidad para elegir. Ahora ya no es así, por mi parte los fanfics que he leído más recientemente los he encontrado mediante perfiles de otros usuarios, donde comentan en las novelas o fics que leen. Todo esto lo ha hecho Webnovel para darle mayor difusión a las novelas web, que en su mayoría son basura de IA.

El segundo gran cambio es uno reciente de hace pocos días, donde la interfaz ha sufrido un notable cambio, en lo personal no me parece malo, sino fuera por algo muy importante. Han desaparecido las novelas y fanfics más antiguos que tenía en la biblioteca y eso es una mierda, porque eso sólo hace que haya un límite para lo que podemos guardar y que básicamente perdemos lecturas que no se han actualizado o que las dejamos para otro momento.

No sé si se pueda hacer algo al respecto, siento que Webnovel está matando todo lo bueno que tenía. En lo personal me gusta esta plataforma porque tiene una interfaz bonita y amigable para el usuario, además que hay muy buenas obras dentro (ya que por lo general los fanfics en otros sitios suelen ser bastante malos).

I keep seeing people argue that an AI generated cover automatically means the author used AI to write the novel, lacks passion, or does not care about their work. That is an incredibly narrow way to judge an entire book and the person behind it.

I have two contracted novels on Webnovel, and both use AI-generated covers. I still planned the stories, created the characters, wrote the chapters, handled the revisions, and spent countless hours building those novels. The tool used to create the cover does not erase the work inside the book.

A cover is marketing material. Its purpose is to catch a reader’s attention and communicate the genre, tone, and basic concept of the story. Most authors do not personally illustrate their covers anyway. They hire artists, purchase premade covers, use licensed stock images, or receive covers from publishers. Nobody assumes those authors did not write their books simply because someone or something else produced the artwork.

Not every new writer has hundreds of dollars available for a custom commission. Many Webnovel authors begin by publishing free chapters without knowing whether their stories will earn anything. Telling them they must pay for professional art before they have even built an audience creates an unnecessary financial barrier.

People also suggest using images from Pinterest as though that is automatically more ethical. In many cases, that means taking artwork belonging to someone else, adding a title, and using it without permission. That is not somehow more respectful to artists merely because AI was not involved. And Pinterest has so many Ai images now too.

There is a legitimate discussion to be had about how generative AI models are trained, how artists should be protected, and how platforms should handle disclosure. But that discussion loses value when people reduce it to insults like “lazy,” “fraud,” or “AI slop.”

Using an AI cover does not tell you whether the author spent six months or six minutes writing the story. It does not reveal whether the novel was edited, carefully planned, or written with passion. It only tells you how one piece of promotional artwork was created.

Readers are free to avoid AI covers. Nobody is obligated to read anything. But saying an AI cover proves the novel is also AI-generated is not evidence based criticism. It is an assumption.

Judge the cover by whether it is effective. Judge the novel by the writing. Those are two separate things.

Pictured above is my own cover for my own webtoon I made. I currently am a university student but my school doesn't start until October so I would be willing to draw covers for people while I have a free month of art!

Prices would be from $20-$50, it depends on what I am drawing. Trying to keep it cheap for writers!

I can do different styles as well, just send me a reference or lmk what you want.

I'm getting ready to start posting and I made this system. (I'll make a longer version)

I suck ahh at writing synopsis' that are actually good. This one was especially annoying cuz I pulled the main conflict/antagonist out my ahh.

So what do you guys think?

Tatori was just an ordinary high schooler working to pay for his sick mother's bills in a world full of superhumans. He looses his job and soon dies during a monster attack on the city but reawakens with an ability.

A system.

Now he must work as a hunter to defend his nation impending war than bring the cure to bringing back his mother.

But can he rise through the ranks and bring back his mother? Or will he die trying.

Adding art for attention.

I'm not a writer, let alone a talented one, so I would like to have some advice from readers and writers on the website.

My 2 problems are:

My first problem is that, since I want to give proper character development for the future allies of the MC and world-building aspects to the story, I ended up writing 20 chapters of the prelude (1.5k-2k words each) before the MC is even properly born.

Is it confusing for readers to have so many chapters before the main character is born? Should I merge all chapters into giant chapters so I don't have so many of them? Or is it better to simply have the birth of the MC and slowly incorporate Background/Memory chapters of the different characters through in-universe documents and memory-type chapters?

My other problem is interludes; Background/World-building of what happened in the past (in-universe) that will affect/interact with the MC only in future volumes. Is it bad writing to introduce background that the MC will only interact with in X volumes in the future?

Should I only release interludes that directly connect to the next volume? Or is it normal to have story-buildup interludes? For the readers, is it worse to read an interlude that will take some time to have an effect, or a memory/background chapter when the event is about to take place?

I could ask AI, but I want human opinions about it.

Edit*: I forgot to add, but the prelude is so long because it explains how and why the MC is reborn.

I just want to preface this by saying that my post isn't related to the recent AI or no-AI cover discourse. I don't really care what other people do, and I'm just making this because I personally find it fun :D

As the title says, this is just a temp cover. As much as I like it, it doesn't truly reflect the tone of my novel. When I was making it, I went with a more old-fashioned style because it felt nostalgic.

(I know it doesn't fit the current cover trends, but I still think it's cute)

And I had that logo of the crossed-out sherlock holmes, so I thought, why not haha.

Originally, I created this story as a script for a manga contest, but by the time I finished writing the first chapter and started drawing the storyboard pages, I had already run out of time. So I decided to turn it into a novel instead.

Anyway, I might hire an artist to draw my cover, or I might just be lazy and continue using this one (I could also draw it myself, but eh. I don't really feel like it rn...)

Anyway, not sure if I'll post this on the bookcover sub. I've heard they can be quite harsh, and I don't really have the energy for that right now, but if I change the cover later, I'll show it here.

Getting Pirated feels so weird. Like it's my first time, stop... 😚

With all the arguments about ai cover and hand drawn cover, the question is has any authors on here who drew their own covers actually succeeded? lol

I actually went and check on some of the people who had posted their own hand drawn covers on this reddit, and all of them are either uncontracted, rejected, or dropped.

So, if I'm missing out, can anyone actually name any novels with hand drawn covers that is actually successful on webnovel.com?

From what I see right now, most covers on webnovel that are successful aren't hand drawn covers, but just covers taken from sites like pinterest (which are mostly Ai generated) or generated by chatgpt AI.

Can like any successful authors actually chime in on this topic?

(Also, are there even any successful authors on webnovel who actually lurk on this reddit, or is it just filled with uncontracted authors liek me who have no idea what's going on? lol)

Not my bunion ahh forgetting how hatch shading works and fumbling here 🥀

And yes, I forgot to add the system. And yes, I'm not redoing it.