Peneigh Dzredfohl

The Hobbit AU

└ Thorin and Frerin before the Battle of Azanulbizar 

Human Made vs AI Book Covers:

A Discussion

I peel back the wrapping on the first author copy of my new book and catch my breath in delight. A joy I still feel whenever I glance at the novel on the corner of my desk or tally the unsold books stacked on the floor. The same feeling I get standing in front of a Jackson Pollock painting in a museum.

I love the artwork on my book’s cover. It reminds me of how creative humans are. How colors can be so vibrant. How a font can literally flow.

Would some of that joy be absent if a non-human produced the art? Good question. Complicated answer. 

To explore the concept I posed three questions to a couple book cover artists I know and I listened to supporters of AI generated covers. First, let’s define the issue. What is AI generated work? This conventionally means that an AI tool produced the image, artwork, text, translation or other content. For a book cover, that might mean that the background image, character art, symbolic object, illustrated scene, or full visual concept came from an AI image generator. AI-assisted content is different. That’s when a human created the main work, and AI was used to brainstorm, edit, refine, correct, clean up, or improve it. 

Wow, look how many times AI appears in the above paragraph. Truly taking over the world! 

I read or heard (not sure which if I listened to the interview while reading the transcript) a proponent of AI book covers being interviewed. Pablo Yanez, the founder of BeYourCover. He declared that someone who inputs prompts to create an image is an artist in the same way a photographer or painter is an artist. Producing a cover by machine learning or using tools such as DALL-E or Midjourney, requires skills like being very specific, adjusting for pixel size, fitting it all into the printing templates. Okay, well, that’s one way of thinking about creativity.

I talked to the live humans who make book covers by hand. It may be my bias but I sensed more depth to their work. 

Ed Colbert has painted the artwork for my book covers and I asked him what he considers when he displays the contents of a book on its cover. He answered, 

“I think it’s impossible to portray the entire story through one piece of cover art, however, I try to make an image that features 1-2 important and meaningful components of the book. Usually, that manifests itself in a symbolic portrayal of the book’s theme. I think the cover really is something of an attention-grabber, to get a potential reader interested with a quick visual look.  I want the overall color commentary of the book, not the play-by-play.  It’s the author’s story, I’m just trying to put a visual spin on it, perhaps a visual story easily relatable to the author’s synopsis.  I don’t want to read the book first, because then my visual story could get muddled and confusing, I don’t want to put too much on the cover.”

I asked Andrew Preston, Morehead musician, author, poet, the same question. Here is his answer.

     “My first book, The Hum of a Dreaming Moon, is a collection of lyrics from the span of my career writing music. I wanted the cover art to feel handmade and deeply personal to reflect that. During my first time at the Appalachian Writers' Workshop in 2023, there was an introductory collage activity to break the ice and get everyone warmed up. I ended up making the book cover there (before I realized it was the book cover) and it felt like a summation of my career and it mirrored the aesthetics of my album art (all commissioned by local artist friends) so I felt the theming was perfect for what I wanted. I liked that it was hobbled together and DIY, much like my music.

     For my forthcoming book, Considerations, I adapted a similar process. Rather than lyrics, the book is a conglomerate of short stories, fragments, poetry, and music, all drawn from hazy early childhood memories. So I printed out and cut up a bunch of old photographs and doodles from my childhood and stitched them together in another collage. It captured the dreamy feeling I wanted the collection to have, plus it created a visual throughline for my work. It's important for me to keep a consistent theme with my work overall, but also capture the feeling of each individual book or album.”

In contrast, Pablo Yanez bragged that in less than 5 minutes his book cover generator could make a genre perfect, professional design. He did admit that AI struggles with subtleties and specifics like character and mood. I might call these the human element. He also said AI has a certain recognizable pace, and word choice that is more noticeable at the lower end of cost. He made the legitimate point that AI generated covers were useful for authors on tight budgets and according to their motives. If the goal was to sell books with minimal effort beyond writing the damn manuscript, then AI was a wonderful help.  

Another question I posed to my human friends was if they considered book covers public art. Certainly a book with a million sales gets more eyes on the cover than any masterpiece hanging in a museum. Except possibly the Mona Lisa. Their answers suggest to me the humility of artists. 

Ed said, 

“I consider the art that I create for an author’s book to be commissioned work.  The cover image is kind of like having a carpenter build you a front door. No matter what the carpenter does with the door, once he/she is done with it, it becomes part of the house. The cover image can be as public as the author wants it to be, once it is included with the written words, it’s the author who decides who sees it and how it is seen.  However, the actual piece of art (painting/drawing/etc) is separate from the cover image, because it is a tangible stand-alone object and it can remain detached from the book forever.  I do not believe the artist’s signature should be on the image (or at least it should be very discreet).  I think that distracts from the real work, which is the author’s story.  It is good to have acknowledgement of the cover artist in the acknowledgment or page behind the cover.”

Andrew answered similarly, 

“I think book cover designs are absolutely public art. I don't include my signature only because part of the artwork itself for me is how to display my name and the title in an effective way. The font, the placement, and the size all become part of the art itself. If someone other than me has created book or album art for my work, they haven't historically included a signature, but I am sure to include their credits and any links to their other work they'd like on a credits page. I'm not opposed to including a signature on my covers if another artist wants to do it, although it might seem confusing to have multiple names on a cover depending on how it's placed.”

I think about exploitation often. And Pablo Yanez made a good point that there are several layers of exploitation in the world. The question of who and what is exploited is not black and white in the field of AI and a discussion of both sides is too nuanced for me to totally grasp. I did ask the designers one other question. How closely do you need to know the author?

Ed said:

“It likely helps to know the writer, if for no other reason, the artist can have a good back and forth dialogue and ongoing discussion. I don’t know if the artist has to be in the head of the author, but it probably helps to know of the author’s general preferences (likes and dislikes).  For instance, if the color green had made Dr Seuss visibly ill, it would be good if the cover artist knew that before painting the eggs”

Andrew replied:

“My album art and book art are exclusively done by me and my artist friends (I typically hire artists much better than myself for my designs), but it's important for them to be a part of my life in some capacity. I'm certainly open to hiring artists I don't know, but I know so many talented artists who I have wonderful memories with, I want them to become part of my art as well.”

I think these comments draw me back to my joy at seeing my book covers. This concept of “contextual distance”- a term I have borrowed from geography that measures how far apart two things are based on their surrounding environment, background, or situation, rather than using simple physical or linear measurement. Ed Colbert is my brother and seeing his work combined with my work reminds me of my family. We are contextually connected. I’m not sure I would have that connection with a random produced image. 

Artistry is very fluid and creativity comes in many forms. 

I will be involved with the upcoming Appalachian Literary Arts Festival in Morehead, Kentucky at the end of August and I wanted to leave you one last comment from Andrew (one of the organizers) about book covers and why they selected only authors with hand made art. 

“ALAF's organizers are all creatives in their own right, and it's part of our core mission to celebrate the humanness of creativity and art. Furthermore, Appalachian art and literature itself is historically homemade and community driven, so AI felt like an antithesis to our organization. On our author applications, applicants were required to answer questions about AI usage in their books, including in cover design. They were also required to send cover art images. We declined any applications that used AI and we were careful to look over cover art for accepted titles to make sure they had appropriate artist credits. We also have the literary art visual art gallery at Rowan County Arts Center leading up to and during the festival to make sure visual artists are celebrated for their interpretation of storytelling and literature, and we also hope that aspect of the festival can become a networking opportunity for writers and visual artists to collaborate on things like cover design, etc.”

Don't forget come to the Appalachian Literary Arts Festival in Morehead on August 28-30. Lots going on.

https://www.appalachianliteraryartsfestival.com

Thranduil, upon walking into the tent and seeing Bard for the first time: decides the best thing to do in this situation is to give a rather detailed and explicit description of all the things he wants Bard to do with him, in Sindarin.

Thorin, who does not speak Sindarin but sees Bard's eyebrows fly up and really doesn't want him any more angry than he is over Thorin setting a dragon on his people and then nearly going back on his word to help them: If he wanted to insult you, he'd do it in Westron. Trust me on this, I would know. It was probably something nice.

Bilbo, who does in fact speak Sindarin, grinning next to Thorin: Oh, it was VERY complimentary.

Thorin, desperate to not cause a diplomatic incident: You know what he said?

Bilbo: Oh I'd be quite happy to translate.

Thranduil, who was entirely unaware that anyone else here spoke Sindarin and is trying to cover his embarrassment: Absolutely not.

Bilbo, having the time of his life: Oh don't be so upset about it, we hobbits aren't nearly as prudish as the rest of you.

Thranduil, getting defensive: That was not meant for your ears.

Bilbo: Well if they were meant for his I would suggest saying them in a language he can understand.

Mostly. A couple years later, little lilac babies popped out of the ground in its place. My mom was determined to get rid of them, because she'd planted a beautiful flower garden there, and the lilac trees would overshadow and kill the whole garden. I insisted on saving at least a few saplings. She said fine, but I had to dig them out and put them in pots myself.

So, I did. I spent days digging little lilac bushes out of the ground and putting them into pots. Some couldn't be saved, but some could. When all was said and done, I had five brand-new lilac saplings. Seven or eight years old, and it was my absolute pride and joy.

Three died due to sun scorching, severe drought that no amount of watering could save, and perhaps just being moved from their place in the ground. But two survived, and I was awfully proud of them! I'd go out and talk to them every single day. I watered them by hand and made sure they were fertilized properly. I learned all about their favored environments, and I was determined to make sure they lived.

One of my mom's friends saw what I was doing with the lilacs. She asked if she could have one to put in her backyard, and I agreed on the condition that she take very, very good care of it.

It's now fucking enormous. I'm talking ten feet tall and bursting with beautiful purple flowers every spring. My mom still gets updates each year as they start to bloom, which she forwards to me. And all I can think is, "That's my friend! Thriving some twenty years on, there it is."

The other tree nearly died, too. It lived in a pot for far, far too long. I wanted to plant it somewhere in my parents' yard, but my mom was reluctant. Eventually, we agreed to put it in the far back garden. It grew okay for many years, despite the shade, but in all these years, it's never bloomed.

Last year, the massive tree casting massive shadows over the lilac and the garden cracked in half and fell. It tumbled into the garden, crushing part of the nearby shed and destroying a few plants beneath it.

It missed my lilac by inches.

The clean-up is long done. The rest of the tree has been cut down, and my lilac has full sunlight for the first time in fifteen years. It won't bloom this year, I know. But it's got new shoots up. It's taller than ever. I spent half an hour a few weeks ago praising it for surviving all this time, dreaming about its future and telling it how I believe it'll become the tall beauty it's always been meant to be.

The lilac is doing very well! It's got almost a dozen new little branches and it's covered in more leaves than ever before. It looks so, so healthy - and that's where it's prioritizing its resources. No flowers this year, because the lilac has chosen essential growth and fundamental health over ornamentation and reproduction.

It's a good choice, I think. It looks so good. So many little leaves, so much new growth. Bits I thought were going to be dead are beautifully green. I decided not to take pictures of it; something about it felt wrong to do.

The other lilacs in the yard have bloomed, though, and I did get pictures of those. Plus the little potted one on my deck, which has teeny little flower buds on it.

I hope that you'll all be here next year to check for flowers with me again. Because you really never know.

And who knows? Maybe you'll have flowers to show me, too. I certainly hope so.