Welcome to any creatives nightmare.
My name has been uttered besides ai. I was approached by a professional with kindness in regards to my character artwork. Now, anyone who's been with me since the beginning has seen this. There was five character art cards with Missing Girls & Lost Boys, and I went to the same 'artist' for Road to Eden. I'm a massive fan of character art. I've spoiled may a book by falling down a fan-art rabbit hole and seeing plot points prematurely. So it was important to me to gift my readers with character art to support the books story.
I fell in love with them.
My characters were brought to life, so how could I not stare lovingly at my little creations? I even included one of them on the back of Road to Eden.
And then everything changed.
It turned out that they had been created by ai. Hidden within the layered photoshop files I had requested were the art files which had been created, and then run through an oil-painting filter, so they all looked the same. After working with photoshop for over a decade, I honestly thought I'd spot ai a mile off, but I had fallen in love with it. Used it in marketing, and even my book art. I had to wipe the remnants from my social media like a mass cleansing, which was heartbreaking since so much of it had been used in the promotion of Road to Eden. I obviously felt rotten, but my amazing street team also had to delete so much.
Quite simply, I was heartbroken. I went to work as normal, but the rest of my time was spent in a duvet crying while binging Off Campus. (Which quite frankly, if the best kind of therapy. Ten out of Ten recommend for any mood based ailment.) And then I did a public statement.
What was my biggest fear? That the word 'ai artwork' would turn into 'ai writing?'. But it didn't. The bookish community were amazing. Not one single negative comment. I was hounded with love, and understanding from readers and authors, while so many reported how they too had been a victim.
It was enough to help me move away from it all. The costs with the 'artist' have been revoked from their marketplace platform, but there's not nearly enough in place to report this kind of fraud or protect others from dealing with these scammers. I'll have to swallow the costs of the physical artwork I had printed in bulk, along with having to reprint Road to Eden WITHOUT the ai artwork on the back.
Luckily, due to a compulsion for character art, I already had artists involved with created Limited Edition hardback artwork, and more character art. So I'm not completely without. But I'm excited to move on from this horror chapter of my career.
