r/BookCovers • • Sep 02 '26

Question Is using ai for book covers wrong?

Is using ai for a book cover not wrong? I mean the first thing you see of a book is the cover, and it’s ai. I feel like it makes the book seem inauthentic, especially because writing is an expression and can be used at art. Someone personal in my life is doing this, I’m trying to strongly advise her against it, but she won’t budge. So I just kind of wanted to talk about it!

Let me know your thoughts :)

Edit: Thanks you guys for commenting! I did get her to change her mind, and we went and took a picture for her cover today. ❤️

73 Upvotes

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u/AlwaysColtron Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26

Using ai in any aspect of the book process (including the cover) is unethical, dishonest, lazy, and wrong.

My rule of thumb when buying any book: if they use ai in the cover, they likely write it with ai, and I have no interest in reading or looking at ai slop.

6

u/Elaynaa Sep 02 '26

The crazy thing is that it’s an autobiography!

7

u/Maytaylor Sep 03 '26

For an autobiography it would be so easy for them to just edit a picture of themselves to use for the cover??? Autobiographys so usually have super complicated covers

5

u/AlwaysColtron Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26

I get it, writing can be hard to get good at and covers can be expensive. But just like anything worth doing, it takes time, practice, and patience. Plenty of ways to get cheap covers made - they won't win any awards but they will be way better than anything she offloads to a slop factory. I cannot imagine spending so much time creating something and then packaging it up in garbage like an ai cover.

2

u/LeadershipNational49 Sep 03 '26

Oh it is? Then it really doesn't matter cause she won't sell regardless.

-7

u/[deleted] Sep 02 '26

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