Today we have a very interesting blog for you and we would like to start this by asking you to imagine yourself as a writer.

You are a first-time writer and on your way to becoming a published author. Your manuscript is complete and all you need to do is to self-publish that manuscript.

And since you are self-publishing, you need to do everything by yourself, things like creating the book cover, getting the books printed and also thinking about copyright filing

You can do everything on your own but there is a small problem and that is definitely the book cover.  You are probably not an artist but you want your book cover to look professional and you have a certain vision for the book cover.

You can spend some and get yourself a professional book cover designer who is experienced in graphic design as well as drawing illustrations and much more.

But you want to do everything yourself and so the only other option for you is to either try and draw the book cover yourself or do something else.

That something else is going to be utilising AI to generate the book cover for yourself.

It will not infringe on anyone’s copyright because it will be an image you created and you can create it any way you want.

That is exactly what we are going to talk about in this blog because we will talk about whether you can design a book cover with AI image generators and whether it is practical and even doable or even legal.

What Are AI Image Generators?

AI image generators basically work on the simple function of text to image which means you need to write a prompt and the AI engine is going to interpret that prompt into an image.

You can then add additional prompts to alter that image according to your needs.

There are a few ways in which AI engines do it. These are the most common AI image generator types.

· Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs)

· StyleGAN and StyleGAN2

· Variational Autoencoders (VAEs)

· Transformers

While we do not want to get too technical in this blog meant for authors but they basically work on the principle of generating an image and discriminating that image to see if that image is comprehensible or realistic.

We would love to write a separate blog on the different kinds of AI image generators if you want us to.

There are a lot of options these days that will allow you to generate images based on text prompts as well as image inputs. Let us look at some of them now.

Popular AI Image Generators

DALL-E 3

The first one we are going to talk about is OpenAI’s DALL-E 3. If you know Chat GPT then they are the same people to have created this AI image generator.

It produces excellent results but the only thing with this is that if you want to use it then you need to upgrade your Chat GPT 3.5 account and upgrade to Chat GPT 4 with a Plus subscription. It is $20/month.

If you only need to generate a single image or maybe try out the generator for a single instance of creating a single book cover then $20 might seem expensive.

You cannot have access to OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 with the regular free plan.

Midjourney

The concept behind Midjourney is quite different because they operate with Discord which means you need to sign up with them and also create a free Discord account.

Then you need to join their server and you will get to generate 25 free images and after that, they are going to charge a subscription fee.

Midjourney produces good results and people have even won AI artwork competitions with the help of Midjourney because it is so good at producing results in the form of artworks. It is excellent at replicating human artists and illustrators.

Adobe Firefly

Now we come to a unique AI generator because if you know how to write prompts then you can expect excellent results from this AI generator by Adobe.

All you need to do is search for it on Google and you might be asked to get an Adobe Photoshop subscription but if you look a little bit more then you can find an option to try out Adobe Firefly for free.

This generator has a lot of control options and even has very detailed controls including colour and tone as well as lighting effects and you can even set the camera angle before you generate the image.

You should definitely try it out because it is a very good free option and while we do not know how long it is going to stay free but you should try it as long as it does.

Stable Diffusion

The last option that we are going to talk about is going to be Stable Diffusion because while it comes with a steep learning curve but it is completely free because it is an open-source generator.

However, Stable Diffusion comes as an API in its open-source version which means you might need some bit of technical knowledge to utilise it.

Some programs might let you use it like the other generators but there might be a paywall or it may not be as fast or astable as the original API.

If you want to choose one among them, then it is a very tough decision to make because all of them are quite new and this is just the early stages of development for what we know as AI generators.

DALL-E 3 and Midjourney are excellent especially DALL-E 3 because it is based on OpenAI and we would suggest you to use it because of its ease of use.

So, what if you want to use DALL-E 3? There is another option to use it completely free.

The Option to Use DALL-E 3 For Free

The only option to use DALL-E 3 for free as many times as you want is to use a device that supports the Microsoft Bing browser.

This means you can use your PC that runs on Windows or you can even use your smartphone where you can install the Bing browser.

All you need to do is to open the browser and sign up with a Microsoft account. That is the only complicated part of it because you need a Microsoft account.

All you have to do then is to search for Copilot. It is the Microsoft smart assistant. Copilot will let you create as many images as you want.

This is only possible because Microsoft is a shareholder in OpenAI which means you get to use their premium products for free.

The only catch is that you might not get the best resolution photos and you might need to upscale it and know a little bit of Photoshop work to utilise that image in your book cover.

Now that you know how to use AI image generators, let us talk about the ethics of it and understand if you should actually do it and if there are any legal implications behind it.

Should You Use AI Image Generators for Your Book Cover Design

The Argument for It

If you are a first-time author trying to do everything on a budget then there is actually no harm to using AI image generators because that is your only option.

It is not like that is the primary body of your creative endeavour because the actual body of that creative endeavour is going to be the manuscript or the body of the novel which is completely original.

The book cover is just the covering of your work and you definitely need one so why not create it in the best way possible?

The most important thing to understand here is that you are utilising your own vision and your own prompts to create that book cover with any AI image generator.

You can definitely argue that it is your own creation and you would have created something like that if you had illustration skills.

As a first-time author trying to publish your book with your own funds, you have the right to do anything in your power to create a good book, provided you do not use AI for the actual body of the text.

The Argument Against It

The argument against it is just that it is not real. It is not created by a human and it is created by a model trained with multiple images and that is why your book cover will not be original but simply inspired by millions of images.

It also means that you are not pursuing absolute originality when it comes to your work but then again you can if you create the book cover by yourself, you are probably inspired by millions of images you have seen.

So, from that standpoint, is any image actually original whether it is created by a human or AI?

While we have to consider the fact that this might steal the employment of an artist or an illustrator whom you might have hired for creating the book cover design, that is out of the question here because you are not planning on doing so in a small tight budget.

So, even in the argument against using AI image generators, we can’t really think of anything to support this argument.

Of course, that does not mean you should create an entire watercolour portrait similar to any classical painting and attribute it to yourself, but if you just use it for inspiration in the design then there is no harm in it.

If you want to be absolutely clear in your conscience when it comes to the ethics of it, you can even put in a little attribution on the inner side of the book cover jacket telling readers that it is AI-generated.

You can even put the prompt for absolute transparency. That would actually be amazing and unique.

The Legal Side of Things

If we consider it from the legal side of things then it is completely legal because you are creating that image yourself and we cannot find any attribution or CC common laws regarding AI image generators.

There are even marketplaces where people sell AI-generated art and there are even auctions for that kind of art in digital galleries.

Several brands are already utilising AI-generated art for entire marketing campaigns and brands use AI art to even create logos and so much more.

So, if corporations and big-name brands can utilise AI-generated images for entire marketing campaigns with full immunity, so can you without the fear of any legal consequences.

The only thing you need to worry about is your audience because if they are okay with it then you do not need to care about anything else with AI image generators.

And you must also make sure the prompt is original and custom.

The only problem with generating AI images is that there is a lot of trial and error if you want to create something complex and something truly unique. Writing the perfect prompt is an art in itself.

However, even after creating that, you might feel bad for your audience because you probably want them to have the best and the most authentic experience. An AI book cover would seem like a compromise with that quality.

That is why if you are publishing on a budget, you do not need to worry about creating your own book cover image with AI and compromising on originality because we are here for you.

We are Orange Publishers and we take care of everything for our authors including book cover design because we have professional illustrators that can do the work for you.

We are the fastest-growing book publishing company in India and all our operations are in-house which means we can assure you the best kind of quality when it comes to printing, publishing as well as promotion.

We even take care of the copyright which means our authors simply have one job and that is to present us with their manuscript and relax.

We welcome you to visit our website and check out everything we do.

Common AI Book Cover FAQs

Can AI make book cover design?

AI can absolutely make your book cover design because all you need to do is select the best AI image generator for yourself and learn how to write prompts.

Once you master the art of writing prompts, you can create any image in the world and you can keep altering that image until you are satisfied with the final result.

This is opening up endless opportunities for new authors within a shoestring budget looking to have the best kind of illustrations for their book covers.

Is it legal to use AI art for a book cover?

It is completely legal to use AI art for book cover design and let us help you understand this.

The reason why AI art generated by you will always remain legal to use is only true if you also write the prompt yourself and not just copy it from somewhere else.

This is because if you copy someone else’s prompt then there might be a chance that the AI will generate a similar kind of image and that image might be already claimed and copyrighted by someone else

So, if you write your own prompt and generate an image and also reverse image search it on Google to find out that it is truly unique, then it is completely legal to use that image.

Entire brands are utilising AI for creating marketing material for their marketing campaigns and you can find celebrities and popular personalities endorsing AI art for their projects.

Does AI art break copyright?

AI art does not break copyright laws usually but it is always a good practice to reverse image search the image you have generated to make sure it is unique.

You must always keep in mind to use your own custom prompts and even if you are getting inspiration from someone else’s prompt, you should customise it and make it unique.

The reason for this is that if you are going to blatantly copy and paste someone’s prompt then there is a small window of chance that the AI will generate the same image.

That is why if you use your own prompts and also reverse image search the generated image and find out it is unique, then it will never break copyright laws.

Who has copyright to AI art?

The AI company behind the AI generator does not have copyright claims to the art because it is something that you have created with your own prompts and text. Just as Microsoft Word will not have copyright over a novel you have typed in it.

That means if you generate that art, claim the copyright of it and file a copyright of that art then you are the owner of that copyright art.

It is as simple as that.