Tapas

Tapas is a site that hosts graphic novels and regular novels. When I first started posting my novels there (that have zero illustrations aside from the cover), I thought that I wouldn't enjoy much success. Reading manga or manhwa is super fun, but I didn't believe for a second that people who enjoy graphic novels would be very interested in my books. I write science fiction, contemporary romance, urban fantasy, and fairy tales. However, my low expectations were exceeded and I got a few followers and a regular rise in my hits.

Then the conflict came.

They're against AI. It totally makes sense for them to be against AI art. I'm a novelist and, when people use AI to write their novels, I think they're losers. It absolutely makes sense for them to be against people using AI to make art for graphic novels. I agree completely.

Except I'm not writing a graphic novel. I'm writing a real novel. I am not using AI to do it, but I need a cover for my book.

Do you know what the most important thing is when designing the cover for the book? It's making sure that the reader knows, without reading the title, without reading the synopsis, and without reading the author's name, what genre the book is. In my case, I write science fiction. Do you have any idea how hard it is to source unique science fiction art? It's a total bitch.

My most successful series is my Sleeping Beauty Inc. series. The first book is called Rose Red, and finding a real artist with an image I could use for the cover was so challenging that it was crazy. It is completely whacko to spend every day for a week looking at thousands of unusuable stock images that don't fill the bill. The image I ended up using is one that is part of a series of 3D images that almost every site uses from a wider store of stock images. You could probably find an image from that collection to add to your article here on Vocal. I'm embarrassed to use it, but I couldn't find anything better. Science fiction art is complicated.

The image I used for the second book, Sleeping Prince, is from the same collection. I just fiddled with it to make the girl's hair look pink instead of red and let it go. I was cranky using an image from the same collection that was actually of the same woman, but I had no choice. I fiddled with a million different images and got nowhere. The image has to show that the book is science fiction geared toward a female readership. That genre barely exists, and there is almost no art made and put up for sale to support it.

Book three, Beauty of Ares. I found an image on Shutterstock that was good enough for me. I knew it was AI. I knew that the person who was claiming to be the artist was a damn liar, and I did not care at all because I was tired of looking through thousands of crappy images. The image wasn't even that good. It was merely passable, but for how much time I had spent scrambling to find art, I bought it and let out a huge sigh of relief.

Then, Shutterstock got wise to all the fake images on their site and canned all of those crappy AI images that plagued the science fiction section. When I was informed, I didn't change my cover. Finding something new was going to be too hard.

By the time we arrive at book 4, Goldilocks Zone, Shutterstock had an AI generation area, and I went to use it. It took a few tries, but I really liked the art that I used for the cover. Not only that, but the whole process was less frustrating than looking through the stock science fiction images. ALSO, the bar had been raised crazy high because the image MUST project the same vibe as the other book covers in the series. For what I had to accomplish, AI did it fast and for a fee that was exactly the same as what I would have paid an artist.

For Book 5, Wild Princes, I used an AI image that had been generated by someone else, but was up for sale on Shutterstock.

Now, let's go visit my accounts ledger as an independent novelist. I tried to be an independent novelist who made a few bucks. I tried to be someone who could at least pay for my covers. I had no success. For many years, I had no success. My books had covers that cost me, but my books didn't make any money. And I got used to that. I posted my books for free on sites like Tapas (a place where I made no money and received no comments or reviews for my work... just the sight of the hit counter rising).

Aside from chapter sites like Tapas, I also had my books up on sites like Google, Amazon, and Apple Books. My books were free as often as I could make them free. In an ordinary month, my download figures were around 4k books. On a good month, more like 20k. People were reading my books like crazy, and I wasn't getting anything out of it.

I was getting really bored.

Then one morning, I woke up with this amazing idea. Here's what it was:

I should take all those books with covers that real artists made (or at the very least, I had to pay for) and put a charge fee on them. Then I should take the same books and make AI covers for them. I now have access to an AI art generator that is practically free, so I could continue to give away books for free... as long as someone is willing to put up with an AI cover.

So, here is where I butt heads with Tapas. First problem: all my books that are available for free have AI covers. Second problem: some of my science fiction titles have AI covers anyway because I couldn't find appropriately futuristic covers for them from stock art.

This means that if I leave the original covers on them, I have to take the books down. I can leave sample chapters, but the bulk of it has to go.

It's sad to lose Tapas, but I finally started making money with my writing. I have other fees besides the cost of getting covers. I have three services I have to pay for as a novelist. One is for audiobooks, another one is for graphic design, and the last one is for reviews. Financially, I would really like to break even.

Sorry, Tapas. You love artists, but you don't love authors.

P.S. I generated the image on the top right using AI. The Tapas logo is merely a font. I wonder who they paid to use it.