Last Sunday morning, I woke up to someone spreading ugliness on my Wattpad page about the covers for my stories. She attacked here because she commented that she couldn't make comments on the FB page. I blocked her account and she immediately came back with another fake account to spread more of her accusations. Sometimes, seeing the comments like these that crop up, seeing some of the other comments that have been left on my page lately, I think some people have so much hate inside that they prioritize that over anything else in their lives because they want to try to make others feel as small as they do. Because they don't like something, no one else should be allowed to like it. Because they find something objectionable, everyone else must, too, and then they expend their energy spreading negativity to make sure everyone knows how they feel.
So I took down many of the covers because I didn't like what she was implying about the artist who created the covers or about me. This person was trying to get to me, so I talked with Diana about the situation. And she posted the following explanation on the FB page that I thought would be helpful here. It's important to know a couple of things: I did not commission these covers, nor did I pay for them. Diana did these on her own, in her own time and then she very graciously shared her talent on my FB page and allowed me to use them on Wattpad. Following is an explanation of how she creates the covers:
Today I was made aware that Lynn had to delete many, many negative comments made by some nasty person in regards to the book covers I created. The comments were apparently made because I used AI technology for these book covers. I have never kept the use of AI a secret, in fact I announced it since the very beginning, since I made the first post with the first covers. As I said then, I use AI to generate my own "stock photos" for 2 reasons: the first reason was because I wanted to improve my skills in regards to AI, which is crucial for someone who works as a graphic designer in this day and age - and the second reason was because I think it is something special to be able to create images that represent the characters the way I envision them instead of using a photo that has probably been used tens of times before on tens of other book covers.
And I wanted to share my vision of these characters with this amazing, supportive group.
I can only imagine the person who made the nasty comments hates her own life and just wants to spread negativity...which is honestly just sad. And I also imagine that this person has absolutely no idea how AI actually works and in her ignorance spreads hate.
Honestly, I was kind of expecting this AI debate ever since I made my first book cover post - but I was hoping it would be a real, positive debate and not just bullying and hate mongering. It appears AI is the new "general fear" in society and the truth is there are people out there who use it responsibly and there are others who use it in a bad way - as it has always been with new technology.
I attached a photo to this post with one of the covers I made - The Warrior and Calissande - in which I showed what was AI generated on the cover and what it would look like with a stock photo - for a better understanding of how I used this technology for the covers. I don't like being accused of things I never did or was honest about right from the start. And the truth is I used AI to generate stock photos of the characters and rarely stock photos of some objects. AI did not do the design of these covers! It was actually more work on editing than if I just took some stock photo and plastered it there, behind the title!
In the end, everyone has their own opinion on this matter, but I just felt like I needed to clear the air and say my piece. ... I wish you all to always be surrounded by good vibes and positivity!
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
So, with this explanation out there, the covers are going back up as I have a chance to get to them. But a huge shout out to Diana for her explanation, her graciousness and her creativity.
