Tag: AI

Early in 2026 I plan to release “For the Love of War” on Kindle as a Kindle Exclusive. This is the entire Of War series in one download. Don’t you dare call it a ‘box set’. LOL

I’ve been working hard on updating the format, getting everything together, going over this 929 page file with the proverbial fine toothed comb. That means sitting here while my mind goes numb and Word does a Spell/Grammar/Readability check on it. It’s long, it’s tedious, it can make me want to jump out of my skin if I sit here too long.

While I would love to upload this whole thing to something like ChatGPT just to see if it would do it for me, I’m not going to do that. Still, just as an experiment, I’d like to see what happens. In not doing so I am able to catch other errors that Word is not catching. Will ChatGPT (or similar, do the same?) I don’t know. Yet, Oh Gods! I wish it friggin’ would!

Authors bitch back and forth about the use of AI in their work and everyone seems to have an opinion that must be heard. As for me, I think if you use it as a tool, you WORK WITH IT, that’s ok. Very helpful in fact. If you type a vague idea into and tell it to spit out a 25,000 word story then you stick on your name on it and publish it…that’s fucking bullshit.

Is that clear enough? Any comments? Questions? Anybody like a mint?

Here’s my dilemma because this a hot topic in those author groups.

My upcoming series download needs a cover. Right? I have worked with cover artists and never been once been satisfied they just don’t see my vision of Ares. They’re always making his face ‘mean’ and putting him old Greek military stuff. I tell them the stories are in modern day, he wears black leather, I get back images that I already saw and dismissed on my Internet Travels. Same goes for those few I’ve paid to make a video in the past. Never once have I USED any of their stuff. I paid the artist the money due them for their efforts and went on my way.

Earlier this year I had that trial version of Canva Pro and I posted all about it here in a couple of posts. We had a grand time with the quatos and the other blunders, remember? Now, please see, the image above! LOL.

Anyway, I saved the best of those renders, I used them in a couple of TikTok videos/FB reels whatever.

According to my author groups we’re not supposed to use these images on our covers. I understand the argument. When I found that images were coming back with artist’s signatures on them I too got miffed. I haven’t downloaded any of those. I would not use any of those. However, in years past I have downloaded a huge amount of graphics from Ye Olde Internet, a few I paid for but most came to me ‘free’. Someone made them. I don’t know who. I used some of them to put together book covers.

I NEED a cover. A GOOD cover.

I want people to really go for this download.

Again, they’re bright, bold, colorful, eye catching. Everything I NEED to help this be successful. Should I not use them? Unlike the person who plugs a vague idea into an AI and spits out a “story” I spent days…weeks!… on these renders. Just learning how to “talk” to the Canva AI and it is a whole other language, was a task in itself, I hated it. So picky. Yes, I wish the renders looked a little less “AI”, a little less Doll Like. I think any of the above will help bring in those readers–some more than others, of course.

Now, there happened to be one of these AI images that I just loved but it had that lovely Three-Leg Problem.

Yep. Ran into that a lot. Three arms and eight fingers and…..oh such fun. It was entertaining anyway.

It’s a little “AI” but I think it works. Not too bad. In all the years I’ve tried, this is the closest I’ve ever to come to seeing these two outside my head anyway. I think it’s eye catching, easy to read, invokes the right emotions and conveys the right idea about the series when you first see it. That damn nanosecond is everything here on Ye Olde Internet.

Will I be vilified for using one of these? I mean, I’m no artist. I can’t make a straight line with a ruler. Truly, I wish I could. However, I worked on these renders for two or three weeks without having anyone to help me sus out this stuff. I didn’t just type in a couple of words one day and take what was given to me. So, in this case, was the Canva AI a tool or a cheat?

I’m not sure.

All I know is that I love some of these covers and one of them will the ‘winner’ here.

I will have to tell Kindle the cover is ‘AI generated’ and that’s ok with me.