How to Use AI for Book Cover Ideation: A Practical Guide for Indie Authors
Three-winged birds and copyright infringement: How AI still fails the "print test" and can lead to legal issues, and why to use it for market research instead.
How to Use AI for Book Cover Ideation: A Practical Guide for Indie Authors
Your book cover is the single most important marketing tool you have. It’s the initial scroll-stopping hook that convinces readers to click your book over all the others in the search results. Many indie authors think AI-image generators are a fast, cost-effective way to create their final covers, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Let’s explore why.
The Risks of Using AI Image Generators for Indie Authors
Artificial Intelligence is an amazing tool, but like all tools, it has its setbacks. AI does not excel at everything, thankfully, and some of its more obvious shortcomings are related to image generation. Here are some common questions and issues with AI-generated content.
Understanding AI Copyright: Do You Own Your AI-Generated Book Cover?
You cannot copyright AI-generated material, and using AI-generated images can lead to legal issues.
Artificial Intelligence can’t create anything original. When you give AI specific prompts, it may “feel” like you’re creating something new, but you aren’t. Without getting too deep into tech-talk, AI generates images by analyzing various elements from pre-existing sources in its training databases and off the web.
Therefore, it can pull data, so to speak, from copyrighted sources that you do not own the rights to use commercially. Even if the AI tool claims you have permission to use its output, you might not have permission from the original artists.
Remember: You are responsible for all AI output and how you use it. You might not “mean” to infringe on someone’s copyright, but you’re still liable if the AI tool drew from content you aren’t licensed to use.
Quality Control: Is AI Good at Creating Book Artwork?
The short answer: No. AI-generated images are prone to mistakes that would be obvious to a human but are easily missed by machines, such as disfigured subjects (think birds with three wings) and distorted backgrounds (like unidentifiable scenery elements).
DPI and Printer Requirements: Do AI Images Meet Book Printing Standards?
AI tools, in general, cannot provide the high-resolution files required for proper printing. While DPI up-scalers are improving, they still can’t always effectively improve resolution in a way that ensures images will print well.
All printers have minimum file requirements regarding resolution and size, and if your cover doesn’t meet them, it will either be rejected or will print very poorly. Expert cover designers understand the file requirements and can provide print-ready, stress-free files.
Disclosure Rules: Does IngramSpark and KDP Allow AI-Generated Content?
The answer as of the time of this article is a tentative “yes,” but IngramSpark and KDP both prompt authors/publishers to disclose if content was generated with AI. IngramSpark currently reserves the right to reject any AI-generated content at its discretion.
Other printers might follow suit in the future (and rules may get stricter), so it’s important to stay abreast of your printer’s specific rules and regulations.
How to Use AI for Book Cover Ideation
As you may have guessed by now, human designers still provide the gold standard for final, original, printer-acceptable, and ethically sourced cover designs. So, what is AI good for? Surely there’s some way you can use AI to help streamline the cover design process, right?
Absolutely, but the key is using AI as a brainstorming and market research partner to help you gather your thoughts and preferences before hiring a human expert—NOT using AI to create any part of the cover for you.
Wading into book design without direction can be costly and time-consuming. Authors who claim not to have specific preferences at the start often find themselves forming very strong opinions after the concepts are created. The feedback they provide later should have laid the groundwork for the cover design from the beginning.
AI can help you avoid this expensive runaround by helping you solidify a direction and generate talking points before design begins.
AI for Market Research: Gather Ideas and Inspiration
AI is an excellent brainstorming and market research partner. You can ask AI to pull up a list of bestsellers in your genre with similar themes and subjects to your book so you can identify workable design trends, get a feel for different approaches, and gather inspiration.
By allowing you to easily compare existing covers in your genre, AI can help you avoid tiresome cliches while maintaining reasonable genre cues to help buyers identify if your book is what they’re looking for.
For example, you can use a prompt such as, “I am writing a [genre] book about [theme]. List the top 10 bestselling covers in this genre from 2025 and 2026. What colors, text style, and imagery do they share? What cliches should I avoid?”
As always, don’t forget to verify the information. Check the links the tool shares to make sure the information it provides accurately reflects the source material. Your book designer can also offer advice.
AI for Visualization: Test Out Imagery
While you shouldn’t use an AI-generated image on your cover, you can still use AI to experiment with different imagery so you can better visualize what works for your cover.
This helps you test different aesthetics, color palettes, and focal points until you find the ideal visual tone for your genre. You can then organize your ideas and preferences into a brief and discuss them with a cover designer and/or illustrator.
For example, prompt AI to “Describe a book cover for a [genre] novel that feels [mood/emotion]. What color palette should I use? What should be the central focal point?”
AI for Keywords: Optimize Your Title and Subtitle
AI also excels at using relevant keywords to craft titles and subtitles that will perform well on the market. All you need to do is feed it your summary, share your goals, and let it know your target audience. The more specific your prompts are, the more targeted its suggestions will be.
You, of course, will still need to fine-tune them, but Artificial Intelligence can provide a strong outline or at least good keywords to help you craft the perfect title/subtitle with which to build your cover design around.
Here’s an example prompt: “Based on my book summary [insert summary], give me 5 title ideas that use high-traffic keywords for readers of [comparable author].”
Remember: Always read the terms and privacy policy of any AI tool before you feed it your proprietary ideas so you understand how it uses your data.
Top AI Tools for Brainstorming and Visualization
ChatGPT/Gemini
As always, general-purpose AI tools are wonderful for brainstorming, market research, creating title/subtitle outlines, and more. They can suggest elements and colors that might work for your cover, and they can warn you if your current title or subtitle falls short.
Midjourney/DALL-E
Midjourney and DALL-E are popular for creating images from detailed text prompts. They can help you visualize your direction before you engage with a human designer. Again, however, we do not recommend using AI-generated images on your final cover.
At 1106 Design, we believe AI can be useful for book cover ideation and research, but professional execution is what wins in the market. While you can do a lot with Artificial Intelligence, the final cover design should always be entrusted to an expert book designer.
Pro tip: If you’re a fantasy, sci-fi, or other author who requires bespoke illustration, you may need to seek out the services of a qualified illustrator to create your cover art. In that case, you should still converse with a book designer first so they can provide a guide for your illustrator.
When you’re ready for an amazing cover design, 1106 Design is here to help. We have the experience and knowledge needed to create captivating designs that will compete well on the market, and we also offer a host of other services—from editing to marketing—to help your book shine. Contact us today to learn more.
In case you missed it…
From Rough Draft to Clean Copy: How AI Elevates Your Self-Editing Process
Click here to discover how to use AI to cut weeks off your revision process and help prepare your manuscript for a professional editor.
Recent Podcasts
Jess Saying with Jessica Danel: Indie Doesn’t Mean Amateur, the Truth About Self-Publishing
Imperfect Marketing Podcast with Kendra Corman: What Does It Really Cost to Self-Publish a Quality Book?
Check Out Our Services
If you need help with any aspect of the publishing process, from editing to marketing, we’re here for you. All of our services come a la carte or can be combined into a package tailored to suit your needs.
To learn more about our services, please contact us here or hit the button below.
Thank you for reading Publish Like the Pros—always FREE!
Subscribe today to receive new indie-publishing resources, updates, and advice.
Referrals to your Substack followers (and anyone else) are always appreciated. In fact, we’re now offering rewards for referrals. Click here to learn how it works.
We hope you enjoyed this newsletter!
Please introduce yourself on X, Facebook, or LinkedIn.