Since launching Damonza in 2012, my aim has always been to increase the quality of the book covers we offer our authors. This goal has seen us continually expand our cover design toolkit over the years.

We’ve always used digital tools to edit and manipulate illustrations, photographs, fonts and other design elements. We don’t paint our covers or draw them with pencils, but we may use a Photoshop filter to recreate these effects. That’s simply how the art of cover design works.

Initially I was quite concerned that AI image generators – Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, DALL·E – would make my team and I redundant. Just type “design me a book cover,” and hey presto, it’s done.

But cover design is so much more than producing a decent-looking image. The more I explored generative AI tools, the clearer it became: they’re not designers. They’re tools. Powerful ones — but still tools. You still need experience, taste, genre fluency, and a sense of what works in the real world.

Ultimately, generative AI is just that: another tool, albeit a game-changing one. Digital artists didn’t replace traditional artists. Photoshop didn’t replace designers, it evolved them. Generative AI is simply the next evolution — and quite literally part of Photoshop itself now, with tools like Generative Fill baked in by default.

Major platforms like Shutterstock include AI-generated images in their libraries. Canva now lets authors generate AI artwork directly — many do, with varying success. In fact, AI-generated elements are already on thousands of book covers. You’ve seen them. You may have bought one.

So, the genie’s out. The question is: how do we use it responsibly?

The ethics of AI-generated images

When AI image generators first launched, there were legitimate questions about training data — especially copyrighted material. Initially, I shared some of those concerns. But over time, I’ve come to see the ethical line isn’t in the tool — it’s in how it’s used.

At Damonza, we’ve designed over 15,000 book covers. I’m sure many of them have been swept into AI training sets. I could feel victimized — but honestly? That’s not how creativity works. Artists have always learned from what came before. So has AI. The difference is speed.

And let’s not forget — most book covers that use stock photography aren’t copyrightable either. If you’re using pre-existing fonts and images, as almost every cover does, you’re working with licensed elements. AI-generated assets are no different in that respect — they’re just new material, made on demand, under clear usage terms.

We don’t mimic other artists. We don’t prompt with anyone’s name. And we never pass off AI’s raw output as finished work. We use it as a creative ingredient — carefully shaped, styled, and integrated by professional designers. Just like any other asset in the toolbox.

We can now make your cover dreams come true

Relying only on stock photos was always a bit limiting: representation gaps, weak genre specificity, and the same stock faces appearing on dozens of books. AI gives us something stock never could — specificity, originality, and a broader range of creative control.

Now, we can bring to life exactly what an author imagines — a very specific character, moment, or setting — without compromising quality or consistency. AI lets us build bespoke cover elements that wouldn’t otherwise exist. We’ve even been able to eliminate our “character creation” fee because we can now produce fully custom people, scenes, and environments far more efficiently.

“Where once we were limited to stock elements, we now have literally infinite options.”

At Damonza we see generative AI as another tool in our toolkit — one that makes us better at what we do, and that ensures your book is wrapped in the cover it deserves.

And when generative AI is used — and it isn’t every time — it is under the following strict conditions:

• Only separate elements are generated — never the full cover, and never the typography.
• AI elements are combined with royalty-free stock images and/or custom design work.
• No real people or artists are referenced in prompts.
• All AI-generated assets are created privately — not publicly searchable or reusable.
• All AI images are generated with commercial licenses appropriate for book use.

Our order form includes an opt-out checkbox, so authors can choose to avoid AI-generated assets entirely. That said, with tools like Photoshop now embedding generative AI by default, it’s increasingly difficult to define a design that’s “100% AI-free.” We’ll always be transparent about how we use it — and we’ll always prioritize design quality, ethics, and your comfort level.

Want to know more about how we’re using AI responsibly? Here’s more:

The Legal and Ethical Use of AI in Book Cover Design
AI in Design: Just Another Tool in a Cover Designer’s Toolkit
Addressing Concerns: Understanding and Overcoming Hesitation
Boosting Creativity: How AI Enhances Book Cover Design

If you’re interested in more grounded perspectives, I recommend this excellent article by designer James at GoOnWrite:
Self-Published Authors Worried About AI Artwork

Or listen to this great podcast featuring Joanna Penn and others in the indie author space:
Generative AI and the Indie Author Community

And as always, if you have questions, I’m just an email away: damonza@damonza.com

Thanks,

Damon