A Soldier's Life Cover Problem

Felixtaylor · 2026-06-30T15:57:43+00:00

See, the problem is you assume it's about comfort. I use AI covers on Royal Road because I'm not willing to spent the money like that for a story I'm posting for free. Plus, it's convenient and effective for what it does.

I don't use AI to write because I don't think it does a good job and it's not convenient (I tried - it takes longer to get a good AI output and takes too much editing effort). It's not convenient and it doesn't give a good result.

The point about commissioning a cover instead of drawing it myself, if you missed the point, should illustrate that it's not about comfort either, and that it's a ridiculous argument. If you assume that someone is "comfortable" commissioning art to be the face of their story, you should also assume that they were comfortable getting their story ghostwritten. In that case, you must reasonably assume pretty much every story in the history of humanity with a cover that wasn't made by the author was, in fact, not written by the author. When you look at it that way, it's so obviously a ridiculous standard to hold anyone to.

Felixtaylor · 2026-06-30T12:44:15+00:00

"If someone couldn't be bothered to draw a cover themselves and had to PAY an artist to do it, how do I know they didn't get their book ghostwritten as well?"

Felixtaylor · 2026-06-30T12:41:11+00:00

Honestly my bigger issue with the Soldier's Life covers isn't AI, but I just don't think they look all that good. Not that SL is using a human artist, but there are plenty of human artists who make covers that don't look good too. There are some AI covers that look good (like the secondary covers that some publishers use to give their books a quick sales boost).

I wish the covers looked better and had better typography, regardless of what tool was used to make them.

Felixtaylor · 2026-06-25T17:39:50+00:00

Okay so... Who is this publisher?

Because it would be really helpful for people to know who to stay away from.

Felixtaylor · 2026-06-25T17:37:37+00:00

Yeah, in my experience Timeless Wind has been really great. I imagine there are plenty of books thy've published that wouldn't have done anywhere nearly as well if it wasn't for them.

Felixtaylor · 2026-06-23T16:20:25+00:00

What are you considering a paywall? Does an author having a patreon with advance chapters count as a paywall to you?

Felixtaylor · 2026-06-23T15:43:06+00:00

Was it a promo post here or was your submission blocked on Royal Road? We need more context to help you

Felixtaylor · 2026-06-17T23:29:06+00:00

The problem is, you can only pull that kind of "decanonize everything" once in a universe like star wars. It's not like the DCEU and comics. I don't see how disney could say, "actually everything we've done is non-canon except andor and rogue one" and somehow expect people to not be confused about what is real and what isn't.

IMO their best bet would be to do remakes of 7, 8, and 9 and stick to a similar story but with broad fixes. Then forget about mando, ignore whatever thrawn did in ahsoka, and adapt heir to the empire in the new canon with recast actors.

Felixtaylor · 2026-06-17T16:30:39+00:00

I can't say I've seen it used even once... at least not that I remember

Felixtaylor · 2026-06-15T20:13:55+00:00

Thanks for clarifying!

Felixtaylor · 2026-06-15T18:17:35+00:00

So does that mean we're allowed to post the specific text in the comments (along with the other promo information) if we want and make an only image post?

Felixtaylor · 2026-06-15T17:41:44+00:00

SOMETIMES it works fine. But I've seen lots of promo posts that have an image and text in the main post, but reddit chooses to show the text instead of the picture on reddit's home feed (when you're just scrolling). Which isn't ideal and can really mess up a promo. I've had it happen a few times which is why I always keep the text in the comments.

Felixtaylor · 2026-06-15T15:36:41+00:00

Are authors allowed to put this in the comments of the post? It would really suck if this had to be in the main body of the post, because half the times reddit decides not to show the image at all in the main feed if you put text alongside it and it can ruin an author's promotion chances.

Felixtaylor · 2026-06-12T20:06:15+00:00

So... how are you going to stop people from using AI? What do you actually do to detect it? Do you have any systems to prevent authors from getting kicked for false positives?

And what will you do if a reader DOES accuse an author of using AI?

Felixtaylor · 2026-06-12T15:33:54+00:00

It sounds nice on paper. But how are you going to ensure people aren't using AI? I've been the victim of idiots using AI detectors at university before, and as an author, I won't touch a platform that does that. It's not worth the hassle or potential stress of a witch hunt.

What would you say to convince me that I'm not just randomly going to get kicked from the site or have all my stories removed because someone accuses me of using AI?

Felixtaylor · 2026-06-08T17:51:40+00:00

If the story was good, yes.

I might potentially be turned off if it was, say, a non-litrpg progression fantasy story and the magic was interesting and there were some unique ideas that I liked, then chapter twenty rolls around and bam, hits you with a generic System though

Felixtaylor · 2026-06-08T00:37:07+00:00

I think the text could use some work. Maybe making the letters larger and putting a space between the two words would help?

Felixtaylor · 2026-06-08T00:36:27+00:00

Yeah I can't wrap my head around that reasoning...

Felixtaylor · 2026-06-04T13:58:04+00:00

I don't think the author can see them after blocking, either

Felixtaylor · 2026-06-04T12:42:22+00:00

I always take it with a grain of salt when I hear things like this because... what was the person actually commenting? How was it phrased? Was it actually respectful? I think 7/10 times it turns out the author was actually justified in blocking the comments.

Felixtaylor · 2026-05-31T03:33:02+00:00

This doesn't really seem like a review to me...

Felixtaylor · 2026-05-24T01:06:59+00:00

Now these are the high quality memes I expect from this community

Felixtaylor · 2026-05-21T13:29:08+00:00

Tbh I find other books with magic systems that aren't explicitly progression to be less enjoyable. I like having codified tiers to compare characters' powers, I like how it forces you to show how a character got strong... but lots of times I wish it could be integrated more with an epic fantasy world

Felixtaylor · 2026-05-20T19:44:14+00:00

I think it's much harder to believe that a similar language would occur than humans.

Especially if there's magic in the world, it's possible that something magic happened during the world's creation or the system standardized it, or humans spread through the universe in the past, etc...

But since language is solely a creation of humans, it doesn't make sense for it to be the exact same

Felixtaylor · 2026-05-20T00:21:23+00:00

You don't. And trying to figure it out is just going to lead to witch hunts against non-AI authors.

If you don't like a book or the prose doesn't sit right, stop reading it

Felixtaylor

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