I long ago crossed a line where I decided that I would rather be free to speak my mind than cower in fear of anti-AI petitions and the people behind them.

Today, I’m not going to rehash my position in full. I’ve already written several long essays about AI’s impact on the creative sector, and I’ve gone over (many times) the reasons why I feel like my opinion is both valuable and too rooted in facts to be overturned by emotional, knee jerk responses. 

What I want to do right now is hone in on something I’ve mentioned in passing several times: the growing angst between indie authors and indie graphic artists.

The topic of contention? AI generated book covers, of course.

I’ve gone into at least three tirades over this debacle recently, all of which contained a certain amount of snark or tongue-in-cheek takes. But it’s time to get serious, because I don’t want the solid points in my observations to be overtaken by my amazing sense of humor.

Let me go through my general talking points…

Indie Authors Don’t Owe Cover Artists a Thing

I’ll start with an opinion that really enrages folks, but I want you to stop and consider what I’m saying. There is no contract, agreement, or law of nature that says every time an indie author publishes a book, a cover designer has to get paid.

That’s just the plain and simple truth of it.

I don’t understand where this misunderstanding came from, but it’s really wearing down my nerves because it’s immensely inconsiderate and demeaning to us, the authors, to say otherwise.

We are our own craftspeople and artists. We create with words. Our heart and soul goes into our stories. And, like it or not, book covers are just packaging for those stories. I shouldn’t have to say this, but we don’t write books to serve as display pieces for painters and graphic designers. 

Our books are the product. Our books are the artwork.

As such, we have every right to choose how we put those works of art out to the world. If one of us chooses to use an AI cover — for any reason — that’s none of your concern. Plain and simple. You can dislike it, but you have no business bullying the author for making that decision.

They did not betray a cover artist, because they are under no obligation to use one.

And when people come along and say awful things like “you shouldn’t even put out a book if you can’t afford to pay someone for a professional cover,” it makes me sick. Who are you to make that call? How shitty of a person are you, really?

And let me ask you this: For the cover designers who have ads or listings online for their services…did they hire a professional writer to produce that copy? NO!? Applying the same standards, they shouldn’t even be advertising their services if they can’t hire a writer to pen their copy.

I’m in marketing. I get paid a lot of money for it. How would it look if I went to every artist who’s managing their own social media accounts or email newsletters and said “you shouldn’t even be in business if you can’t afford to hire a marketing expert!”

Sounds absurd, but that’s exactly what you’re doing when you come at an indie author with that nonsense.

Some Book Cover Artists are Showing Their True Colors…and They’re Ugly

As this plays out, it’s revealing to the world that many of these cover artists (and their white knights) are not looking for partnerships with authors. They don’t care about the authors. When they look at a manuscript without a cover, they see a paycheck, not the hard work of a fellow creative.

It’s becoming apparent that the book cover cottage industry is being downright predatory toward indie authors — all made clear by how they’re responding to the advent of AI image creation. They’re not being professional with authors, offering deals, or trying to improve their services. They’re issuing threats. And their defenders? The only way they’ve thought to fix the situation is to tell indie authors they’ll boycott and blacklist anyone who uses an AI cover.

That’s not fixing anything. It’s saying that if the cover designer can’t get paid, then the author shouldn’t get paid. Forget the fact that cover art has very little to do with that author’s book. You’re willing to sabotage someone’s art and passion because you can no longer profit from it.

Think about that. Really think about how much worse that behavior is than using AI. Who is really being terrible here?

There Are Reasons Why This is Happening…And It’s Not All AI’s Fault

What’s sad (and obvious) is that none of this has to do with art. It’s an argument about money masquerading as a debate over ‘artistic integrity’.

Certain people are unwilling to accept that cover art is just packaging. It’s a label on the real product, not the product, and that means it’s fairly easy to replace with something more economical. 

As long as the writing isn’t compromised, a book is still a book. Again, that’s the art.

That’s the shock that I believe is rocking the industry. It has everything to do with the rude awakening that authors can now create their own perfectly suitable book covers in a few minutes.

It’s the realization that book covers don’t need to be art — they just need to sell books — that’s got so many people confused and angry. 

In reality, not a lot has changed. 

I’ve paid for art on all of my cyberpunk novels and completed the designs myself. I’ll continue doing them that way. I have multiple artists that I pay for their work, and AI isn’t going to stop that.

For my short stories and blog posts, I used stock photos as a basis for years. Now I can use AI and get something much faster. And even when I use AI for something like a short story, I do a lot of work in Photoshop to get it how I want. (Not so for blog posts. I just want those images to be on theme.) That’s a perfectly reasonable way to use AI, and it’s just another sign of anti-AI delusion that creators in my space are throwing tantrums and refusing to work with any person or entity that touches AI — despite the fact that I can guarantee that these same white knights are using technology to replace human labor in many parts of their lives.

That goes back to this whole dumpster fire having little to do with art or integrity and everything to do with money and the twisted desire to control how other people run their lives. (Which is why I find it so amusing when people refer to AI as ‘fascist,’ when they’re the ones trying to control other peoples’ choices to use or not use technology. Forcing people to comply or be blacklisted? That sounds a lot more fascist than generating some images, friendo.) 

It’s Simple Math, Really

How can I be so callous to say that anti-AI types must not care about the authors they’re bullying and guilt-tripping? It’s all in the math.

Let’s say I get a decent deal on a cover for my first indie novel and pay $300 for it. Now, let’s say that indie novel sells above industry average — and take home around $200. Once I’ve paid for that cover (and editing, which is far more important) I’m probably down five or six hundred bucks.

Indie authors aren’t raking in the dough, people. We lose money, for years typically, before we make a dime, and that’s because we’re okay with sacrificing and struggling to pursue our craft. We are not the people you need to be bullying into spending money on artwork.

I sincerely hope artists realize this and stop treating writers who want to get their work out like they’re part of some evil AI cabal. We’re also artists, and we’re just trying to make it. Sure, it’s great (for them) that cover artists have been able to make money off of us on the front end with zero risk, but we have the right and the responsibility to minimize our own risk.

It’s stupid to overpay when you’re pinching pennies just to pursue your craft. You have to acknowledge that. 

Quality is Not a Worthwhile Argument Here

I know someone will try to refute everything I’m saying with some argument about AI cover art quality. I see no merit in that argument for several reasons:

• Quality is subjective.
• Face it. Not all human-created work is high quality.
• I’ve paid for covers — made by real people — that don’t look nearly as good as many of the AI covers that I’ve seen.

This is part of the economics that’s working in favor of AI. Years ago, you could go to Fiverr and get a cover ‘handmade by a human artist’ for around $75. It generally involved stock images and photomanipulation. (Sometimes, these artists would charge upwards of $150 for this kind of photochopped cover). I’ve ordered probably five or six of these over the years, and they all looked pretty bad. I would either have to fix them myself or not use them at all.

And that was after spending days going back and forth with the artists, giving direction that 90% of the time was ignored or misunderstood.

Compare that experience with spending fifteen minutes on Midjourney and getting something that looks better, costs less, and wastes less of the author’s time. There are practical reasons why generating your own cover makes sense for an indie author. They’re undeniable. And I don’t think it’s at all fair to blame the author for this. All AI has done is show the cracks in the ‘cover artist business’. It’s pointed out how inefficient and often ineffectual those services can be.

Of course, I’m not saying that all cover artists are bad, slow, or incapable of following direction. I’m saying that a lot of them are. It’s no different than any other craft. And since you generally get what you pay for, you’re not going to exceptional work for $75.

So, yeah…I’ll say it. I’d rather see an aspiring author use AI to make their first cover rather than waste $75 on a bad one just because it’s made by a human. That’s because I’m an author and I care about the success of authors…not subsidizing other people’s businesses at the expense of my kindred.

Stop Eating Your Own Tail

All told, I take major issue with indies attacking indies over what amounts to greed. Yes, it’s greed when someone attacks a broke indie author because they got a decent cover and saved some of their hard-earned money that they have every right to spend as they wish. It’s not ‘activism’. It’s virtue signaling, because the decision that authors should be harmed or forced into poor choices to protect graphic artists is not ‘protecting art’. It’s protecting one artist’s bottom line while crapping all over another’s.

It’s greed because a book’s cover is not the product. The book is. No one should be bashing and belittling authors for trying to get their work seen without dropping hundreds or thousands of dollars on the front end with very little hope of making that money back.

Dividing the creative space with this foolish war on AI isn’t helping anyone. Fight the corporations — the big guys — not the little indies who are scrapping their way up from nothing. Fight for ethical use of AI, don’t bring elitism into the equation by enforcing some made-up rule that only indie authors with money to burn should be sharing their work.

At the end of the day, some authors will continue buying cover art from others. Some will see better economics in generating something with AI. But what everyone needs to understand is that it’s the author’s art, the author’s money, and therefore the author’s decision on which way to go — and they shouldn’t be ostracized for caring about their own best interests.