WHY I'M CHANGING MY BOOK COVER

In May of 2025 the cover of my first book release, "Restful Sleep and Other Nightmares", is going to change. Why make such a change after only 7 months on the market? I'd like to tell you.

As I've stated multiple times on my websites, during promotion before the release of "Restful Sleep", and even on the back cover of the book, I've been writing stories for a VERY long time. Over 20 years now. I've been wanting to publish a book that entire time. I spent YEARS trying to find an agent for my first novel to no avail. I created a YouTube channel so that I could record audio narrations of my books and get them out into the world that way, and then finally, in 2023, I decided I was done waiting around. I was going to self-publish a collection of short stories if it was the last thing I did. I set a date, and I got to work choosing stories and editing and rewriting, and there was one other caveat that really comes into play here. I didn't have a budget.

If I were going to do this, I was going to do it on my own. Now, I DID get a ton of help from others when it came to beta readers and arc readers and people who were willing to provide me with feedback free of cost. Could not have made it happen without them. But when it came to things that required an investment, I had to do those things myself. I also didn't want to spend a ton of time on those things, because I knew that if I waited too long, I might lose my nerve and not follow through. When it came to the design of my book cover, without even really thinking about it, I decided to put my idea out into some free Generative AI programs and see what popped out. What I ended up with were three images that I really kind of liked. Because AI text-to-image was not all that advanced yet, the graphics that resulted from those searches were kind of surreal and off-putting, which is exactly the feel I was going for.

I did a little bit of work on it, using photo editing software to remove some things and adjust the coloring, but in the end I decided on one and moved forward. I honestly got a ton of positive feedback on the cover. People were telling me they loved it, which just solidified things in my mind. I published the book.

As I continued to promote the book after its release, I started to notice outrage starting to grow within the self-publishing online communities around the use of AI for book covers. At first, I didn't really understand it. In fact, I found myself defending others like myself who had done so out of necessity because of a low budget. People wanted to get their work out into the world, and they needed to have a compelling cover to do it. They didn't have the money to pay a graphic artist hundreds of dollars, and so they took advantage of new technical tools that were available to them. The backlash that I received was intense. So intense that one person even went so far as to leave a review on Amazon, on my book, talking about how proud I was that I used AI for my cover and saying that I probably used AI to write my book too. I've been fighting for months now to get that review taken down, but Amazon doesn't seem very keen on actually helping authors, as they have not sent me a single response to my multitude of requests.

In any case, I backed off and decided to shut up on the topic of AI. I was furious that people were trying to sabotage my reputation as an author because of a picture. But then I started trying to see it from another perspective. I started to realize that I'd been pretty upset as well as I tried to break into the voiceover scene, that people were just using AI voices for their projects instead. They sounded horrible, but they were way cheaper than hiring an actual VO talent. I started thinking about people using AI instead of hiring freelance writers. I realized that, just because it made things more convenient for me, that didn't mean I had the right to support the developments that were threatening the livelihoods of so many talented freelancers.

That is when I made the decision. I needed to get a new cover. I needed to get rid of that AI-generated image and do something unique. I still didn't have a budget, and so I got to work tracking down images that were licensed for commercial use and began to practice my photo editing skills. I went through multiple iterations of a cover, all of which I thought looked like complete garbage. But after weeks and weeks of picking away at it, I think I finally came away with something that I am happy with. AI didn't create it. I used actual resources and my own developing graphic design skills, and came away with this new, updated cover.

My goal is not to become really good at graphic design. My goal is to sell enough books that I have the budget to support other people, who actually do it for a living, to create dynamic covers for my future work. I want to pay editors. I want to pay proofreaders. I want to pay graphic designers and social media marketers. I want to financially support people who do these things to make ends meet. So keep your eyes open this May. I'll be posting images of the new cover on my social media feeds and replacing images on my websites. "Restful Sleep and Other Nightmares" is getting a new face, and I'm proud to be making the change.