A famous aphorism about life in general draws its analogy from books:
You can’t judge a book by its cover
It’s a warning against leaping to a conclusion, or judging people or things by their appearance. It reminds us that beauty is more than skin deep, and that two swallows don’t make a summer.
There’s much empirical evidence in the book trade, however, that – like it or not – the cover of a book sells the story, even if it doesn’t tell it.
And this: We also know that artificial intelligence is worming its way into all our lives. Here’s a tale of cover creation, from first-hand experience.
Many of the writers I know moan about covers and publishers. Rarely does an author – other than a completely self-published one – have editorial control over the cover design. Big publishers have professional design crews, who often seem to bully writers. Many independent publishers use templates that permit only small modifications of art and typeface.
Living up to the aphorism, such formulas of cover design point to something generic, to which genre the book adheres. The cover is a tool of categorization, a typecasting, not a description of the individual distinctiveness of a piece of writing.
But what happens if we throw artificial intelligence into the mix – as a cost saving tool and to break the stranglehold of templates and categories? Having just been through the process with my novel, The Fleetwood Half-Orphan Asylum, here’s an account of what transpired and what it inspired. …
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