I made a entry about this on my authors blog, you can read that here.
What I didn’t include in that post, is how I really should stay off Reddit, I mean – just looking at my feed takes ten years off my life, figuratively speaking.
I know it’s dumb, but I really just don’t want to be reminded of how lame people are, and Reddit is a fucking cesspool of stupidity. But as I said in that post on my authors blog, I can’t really blame the anti-ai crowd for me failing miserably.
What I DO blame them for, is how much I have to govern myself, hide shit weird places on the internet, and just in general jump through hoops to avoid them. I gave up trying to explain to them that there is a difference between an edited image, and one straight off the algorithm.
Let’s just take the image for this post, even if it is a very lightly edited image.
Here’s the original and the edited version. I mean you can see it’s the same character. And as I said, this is very light editing from my side in regards to other images I do.
As you can see there aren’t a whole lot of layers here, and well I used the program sliders and options to edit the colors and appearance of the character, still this is vectors and the character. I have loads of other images where it’s a combination of at least three images, plus vectors.
But again, because the base, and actually the vectors too, because they are made off other images made with ai, is originally created with ai… I already lost the debate. Because pick up a pencil, bitch.
So I just gave up, man. I don’t feel like what I do can even be compared to most AI art you find on places like Deviant art, or the like.
The lamest arguments I had thrown at me was:
*if you use AI for your cover, you used AI to write your book.
And you can’t win this, because when you used AI for your cover, you are already a scammer and untrustworthy, and so they will not believe you even when you try and explain it.
Ai cover = Ai book.
*I would never read your book because of the Ai cover.
I admit I wish the menu where you disclose what use of Ai if any, have been used in your book, ought to be public. Then this is just flat out dumb, because it’s the same people who don’t mind buying some YA title with an Ai cover from a known author. The hypocrisy is rampant.
*You just use an Ai cover because you want to profit off your Ai book.
Again, the book isn’t fucking Ai.
*You have no talent, that is why you self publish using Ai.
Just saying, self publishing have nothing to do with talent. Does Gothikana ring a bell? that is absolutely atrocious, and the damn publisher used Ai on the cover. While authors like R.L Stine self published most of his stuff because he don’t want any publisher telling him what to do.
It’s just hard to stay motivated, man. I mean I would LOVE to show everyone the different covers I made, or the character concepts I did. But I can’t – not publicly at least. And the visual part is just a HUGE deal to me, and it does kill the motivation to know I spend so fucking long making all this come together, and because of 1 fucking Ai based image, it equals nothing.
I am not bummed out about sales, not really. What I am bummed out about is the current toxic community around these topics. I simply can’t promote my damn book without my comments being ‘ai-slop’.
It bothers me to no end, and after this long it’s hard to keep on keeping on. But I do, I mean as you perhaps saw some stuff I just don’t publish, but keep hidden on blogs, I prefer that – even if I have no readers anymore. I get to upload the story I want to tell regardless.
So the logic solution would be, stop using Ai covers. But I simply refuse to do that, It’s that simple. I like my fucking covers, and I like my concept shit. What I don’t like is the fact that I have to sneak around like a fucking ninja, publishing stuff (amazon or blogs) only mentioned in this blog, which has all around 0 readers. So it’s my own little fucking echochamber, which isn’t bad at all. I mean it’s nice and drama free here – BUT I do wish I could be transparent.
Who knows, maybe there is someone out there who likes it some day?
And yes I am so very fucking bitter, and I blame those uneducated asshats for it. I mean not for my lack of sales, that is on me. But on the fact that they suck the motivation out of so many people, because we are in fact many people who do what I do.
I need to think long and hard about ‘maybe we were the monsters’ series.
This is something I saw on Reddit, I mean – rest my case. Does it matter if he used Ai images to make his video more interesting? no. He still researches and does all the other parts of the video himself.
And while this is youtube, it’s sorta the same. Like everything you did, is suddenly just gone, because you used a component of ai to pretty things up, you can read this entry about fanfiction if you want to, it’s basically the same shit.
I will NEVER understand it, like why does it matter? Would they rather I just take shit off Google? Yeah because that is WAY more creative?!
Oh so I shouldn’t be making books or videos then… yeah I see you ‘creatives supporting creatives’ – fucking bullshit, that is what it is.
And as I said, it’s just so damn hard to keep motivated when you in my case, is constantly worrying about how to keep stuff apart. Like no links to this blog anywhere, constantly erasing my own trail. Not because I am shameful, but because I really don’t want my hard work to be about ai.
But it does bother me how I see those people take the joy from small authors and youtubers with their constant barrage of shit. And I do wish the wind would shift, so they would at least see the fucking difference between someone using a tool, and someone just pumping out garbage. But if you used any ai, you are bundled up with the garbage. It’s so unfair.
And the reason I keep wallowing in this, is because it just sucks the fucking life out of me. Like once I didn’t decide one day to hide my stuff away in a web of weird blogs and links, like a damn squirrel, but they forced me to.
And that is a story you’ll see repeated over and over if you look at Reddit. People frustrated with the anti-ai people in this regard, feeling bullied and cancelled for something that is a crime in those people’s opinion only.
DREAMS OF A LOST MOONCHILD 
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