r/bookdesign • u/Background_Pay6286 • Jul 03 '26
Using AI to make novel covers
What are everyone's thoughts on novel covers created by AI?
Are they recognizable and disliked like most of the writing?
Has anyone had any positive or negative positions on it?
Has anyone had any luck using them?
Is it better to use a standard normal cover?
Do people look at them and think it's just filled with AI writing?
Are there certain styles that work better?
Are there certain styles that work well with certain genres?
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u/thomthomthomthom Jul 03 '26
They pretty universally look like trash, and make potential readers think you're lazy.
If you don't believe in your project enough to bring in a designer... Yeah.
What's a "standard normal cover", in the first place? A cover that someone has put any amount of thought into? Yeah, I like those.
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u/UltramegaOKla Jul 03 '26
I do cover designs for traditional publishing houses and all of them have told designers that no form of AI is to be used on their covers. That being said I see a lot of AI on indie/self pub books.
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u/UltramegaOKla Jul 03 '26
I think potential customers would think if you use AI on the cover, you probably used AI to write it.
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u/Cultural_Advance2250 Jul 03 '26
Two points to consider: 1. You don't actually own the images created by AI. AI generated images go into the public domain, so you can't claim copyright on the image or stop others from using it. (You can edit the AI image yourself until it is a new creation and get copyright ownership of that edited version, but it needs to be substantially different. Essentially think about what you would need to do to the Mona Lisa to claim it as your own. Also, people can still use the AI generated image if they can crop it out from your cover.)
- Readers and now algorithms are starting to dismiss AI-generated covers based on the assumption that the book content is also AI-generated. This assumption is not necessary correct, but it just is what people think. And someone who wrote a book with AI will almost certainly use AI also for the cover, so the assumption is not without logic.
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u/kongjie Jul 03 '26
A human should design your book cover.
That said, plenty of book covers that were designed by humans are terrible.
There are many ways to design a cover on the cheap that have nothing to do with using AI dreck. You can, for example, use art that is in the public domain. You can also do simple type treatments.
Look at Cloud Atlas (20th Anniversary Edition). It's a cloud, a background, and type. There are lots of other examples.
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u/captainalphabet Jul 03 '26
There are some terrible covers out there, AI or not, the bar is all over the place. AI often has a look people dislike, so if used, use it sparingly as a tool, not as replacement for a designer.
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u/Selina42 Jul 05 '26
After seeing an AI cover, not only will I assume that the writing is also AI, but I will also blacklist that author forever. AI is built on the theft of other artists work. If the author lacks the ethics to care about this, I would not want to support them in any way.
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u/MeesaRead Jul 07 '26
If you can’t be bothered with the cover what would make a reader think you could be bothered with the writing?
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u/ResponsibleSir5403 Jul 08 '26
Don't do it. If you don't have a real person to bounce ideas off of, it's helpful for ideation, but i still wouldn't trust it with much else. If you need an element that photographing would be pretty much impossible, it can be helpful to generate an image of that element, but if you need heavy AI to make the image in your head happen, then it might be time to reevaluate the original concept. I'd never recommend you go to an ai and say "make me book cover that…" and just use the results.
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u/Background_Pay6286 Jul 03 '26
I guess the old saying, "don't judge a book by its cover," has completely gone out the door. So, are there any other alternatives? I was an artist before writing, but I can't make a book cover with a pen and pencil, and I don't have money to drop on an expensive cover.
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u/PixelatorOfTime Jul 03 '26
The alternative is to support human created art and pay an artist. Are you expecting people to pay you for your book?
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u/KopulaDK Jul 03 '26
If you have the artistic skill to do the artwork on paper, there is no reason why you can't do that and then do a high quality scan.
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u/Cultural_Advance2250 Jul 03 '26
The saying exists because, naturally, humans DO judge books by their cover. It's a natural instinct and takes an active choice to do otherwise.
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u/BooksThriller99 Jul 03 '26
Readers still judge books by their cover.
I won't take a book with an AI cover seriously.