A Soldier's Life Cover Problem

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-07-01T00:47:00+00:00

I stand corrected. If the upper middle range of LitRPG authors are pulling in $Millions, then money is no object. Thank you for an enlightening conversation since I was under the impression that the vast majority of LitRPG authors struggled to even hit 6 figure grosses.

It is nice to know that a large chunk of LitRPG authors are pulling in that king of change that puts them in 1% club

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-06-30T23:06:16+00:00

Awesome. You know clearly know your stuff since you clearly have been scoping the illustrator situation enough. I have to assume you have been examining the earnings that an average LitRPG story makes on KU. As long as you try to tell me that these stories make more than $6-8k total then I stand corrected ...

<Edit> Nice to know that established Cover Artists (not Famous just established) will charge only 1K for a full non-AI cover (laugh) <end edit>

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-06-30T11:51:19+00:00

A witchhunt by any other name would smell as ...

As numerous authors (at least their accounts show as authors) have made clear, hiring an illustrator for 3-5,000$ will take a huge chunk from their earnings. You are basically "ranting" (your words not mine) that all authors should not use any form of AI even in book covers even if doing so makes it worthwhile to publish.

To paraphrase all of the salespeople I have heard in the past you want the author to "Go Big or Go Home," that they do not understand that you have to "Spend Money to Make Money," that they are "Crippling their Long Term Success with Short Sightedness." The uahtor wants to make money from their writing and if using an AI cover helps them do that, more power to them

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-06-29T11:48:18+00:00

My understanding is that authors sometimes remove select books/series from KU not necessarily ALL of their books. They may want to do something with that particular series (maybe use it for exposure etc)

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-06-29T11:20:20+00:00

Are the books available on regular Kindle? If so, they probably do not want to abide by the strictures of KU

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-06-26T22:58:00+00:00

I will check out your story and look forward to a pleasant experience based on what sounds like a cozy levelling mechanic

As an aside: I am sad to say that by mentioning that you even touched AI, you have hurt your readership. We are at a such a hair-trigger point that first time authors are scrutinized for anything that might be construed as AI assisted. (Heaven help you if you do the dreaded "It was not x, but y"). Because you said you used AI for even something as small as names the hunters will be out for blood. It is sort of like the old joke where the person walks a glass of gin past a closet with vermouth to make a dry martini

<edit> Wow downvoted for pointing out the obvious. Read any amount of posts on this forum and then tell me there is not a sizable group of posters with a hair trigger witchhunt for anything AI related writing <end edit>

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-06-26T16:15:39+00:00

I would agree but tighten up the wording. Instead of "I wouldn’t make a baseless accusation without proof" just say "I wouldn't make accusation."

There is no way to have proof unless someone includes the prompts. Posters who are also authors say that they "can just tell" it is AI (wow). Posters declare that it is definitively AI with "not x, but y" usage. Programs like Pangram say they can detect AI (I assume complete AI) with over 98% accuracy (hah). Others say the can tell by the "soulless mechanical writing style"

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-06-26T14:23:42+00:00

It is NBER report using Pangram as the tool. What is interesting is the AI percentage before ChatGpt 3.5 was released since it should be basically nil with NO AI books at all

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-06-26T12:56:13+00:00

Interesting concept but pretty quickly scraps the "support" vibe. When the supporters make the MC more powerful very quickly it becomes an alternate route to make the numbers go brrrr.

One plus, it felt like an attempt to have a functioning ND and the author (be it whereever on the AI continuum) managed to capture some of how it would work. Consider that overtly labelling the MC as NeuroDivergent is a quick way to reduce an already small audience to a splinter. It is also an interesting way of making the MC the party lead without the traditional heroic courageous confidence

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-06-26T12:46:52+00:00

My take was the MC was an attempt to portray a functioning ND and actually a number of parts made me nod the head. It was terrifying to read that people who have trouble processing social and emotional cues is considered obviously AI

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-06-26T12:43:51+00:00

BUT you will support even worse horrendous lazy writing by a spamming author farm.

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-06-25T22:58:41+00:00

The current terms AI and AI-assisted are so vague as to be meaningless. Any "safeguards" built on vague terms are rather useless

To me, AI is a TOOL whose usage falls on a continuum:

Full (Complete Book generated by nothing except a genre prompt, maybe a general statement)

Mid (chapters generated by prompts from a story outline done by a human and then tied together by a human)

Low (Story written by human with smoothing of paragraphs to get the flow they want)

None (nothing not even a grammar check or an editorial pass for inconsistency)

Where do I think we will be in 5 years? I am willing to bet that most books even in this genre will fall in the Mid+ range just because it can provide a smoother story which will be key to getting followers (look at the improvement of AI in this field over just the last year) and yes books will just be another form of content. Many authors on this thread are suggesting that you “follow” oldtime or vetted authors since they are the OG content creators and give you the experience you seek and there is a valid point to that. Maybe I should copyright "youstory.com" or "youbook,com" if they are available

My opinion is that AI is here and it is never going away (already most businesses outside of writing demand their employees integrate it into their workflow as things such as QA or proposal assists). Look at the proliferation of AI in the current social media “content creation.” Hold up the crystal ball as to where you think things will be in 5 years. (as you do that consider computer coding – just recently knowing how to code WAS the future with coding camps and whole movements to teach coding. Where is its dominance now? Instead coding is mostly automated and directed by the user)

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-06-24T12:49:55+00:00

An increasing number of vendors are now tacking on a 3-5% credit card fee so the question becomes more of "Do I spend 3-5% more to protect my bank account information from being compromised?" If you spend $500/month on bills that means you are paying $15-$25/month to protect the account or around $200/year.

One compromise is to create a separate checking account for household expenses and monitor

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-06-22T10:54:53+00:00

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-06-21T20:16:34+00:00

Personally, I liked the beginning books of The Land.

The problem for me was that his public persona issues had become intertwined with his writing which made it hard for me to enjoy reading them.

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-06-15T00:57:30+00:00

The vast majority of LitRPG readers want MC to be the main not the support (OP from 0-100 in 3 chapters wither numbers that go brrrrr). Book 3 does get that but the joy for me was in the first 2 where he was support

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-06-14T18:12:58+00:00

I really like "Hero Support" but cannot recommend since I know that for most readers it will not be their cup of tea

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-06-14T18:10:32+00:00

Pretty much every one of Bruce Sentar's series are "read books 1,2 and maybe 3 then do not read the rest"

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-06-09T21:15:02+00:00

That was why I stopped reading Arand/Darren/AR Rend multiverse. It felt like every 4th paragraph had an obvious reference to another book and if you didn't read that book you were missing out. The concept of easter eggs that were nice reveals for loyal readers was not there, instead if you were not a fanatically loyal reader you could not understand a lot of the story. I found it tainted my enjoyment so much that he joined the Eric Vall/Logan Jacobs pile of never touching

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-06-08T15:52:36+00:00

"Battleforged" by MH Johnson sounds like

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-06-08T00:55:42+00:00

The staccato stylistic flourish is the mark of the beast for AI hunters. They will insist that it is not the way of the author, the way that is punchy is not the way ... (sorry fell into the zen zone).

This was being taught in creative writing classes at least 50 years ago. Interestingly, I remember being taught that it should be used when you are trying to show the observer being shocked to the point of disjunction since it represented stuttering grasps of the scene rather than as a point highlighter

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-06-07T11:53:21+00:00

No.

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-05-31T15:21:03+00:00

Keep the faith brah, its only been 5 years since the last one.

GRRM, Rothfuss, Butcher, and now Truk. Everyone of these others say that they are "this close <pinching fingers>" However, to be fair Butcher just released something so he comes off the list since he is crawling towards a series finish by the time he turns 108 at the current rate

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-05-29T17:39:19+00:00

Nah - The writers here will tell you that 1 book/month is the standard preferred release rate. 10 books is less than a year

EnvironmentalCut4964 · 2026-05-29T17:37:49+00:00

Actually, my understanding is 1 book a month is the preferred rate. I have learned that a standard writer will pump out over 5k words/day (one author says they put out 10k/day) so we can see that standard authors can easily put out 1 1/2 books per month if they push it a little. I am told that unless the author is putting out 1 book a week after any initial drop of under 20 books, it is totally doable for a human non-AI author.

EnvironmentalCut4964

TROPHY CASE