September 21st, 2025

This post is mostly about covers. It may not seem that way at first, because I’m going to start talking about AI first...​

Before all that, quick notice that I have a BOOK LAUNCH coming up on October 4th, 2025, at the Vancouver Island Regional Library in Sooke from 1-2:30 pm. Come see me and share with a friend!!

Now, to business! It would be hard NOT to know about Artificial Intelligence in this day and age in Canada. Among writers, it has certainly spurred a lot of debate, although I can safely say that I’m on the side that writers should do writing. It may have its uses for information and research purposes, but I’m not convinced that its consequences actually outweigh even those benefits, so I don’t tend to use it. I am the person who is probably putting the "-AI" in my search so I can look at the proper sources, but that’s the science of me coming through. I don't really trust the AI summaries at this point anyway!

That said, I have used AI, at least a very rudimentary form of it: I use Grammarly fairly commonly. I use the basic version right now, although I learned a bit from the pro version. I have since dropped the pro version because, honestly, it isn't as smart as it was made out to be. I use the basic program to help me with my grammar and punctuation, ensuring that I catch mistakes that might otherwise slip through the cracks.

What I don’t do is use generative AI for my writing at all, which is when AI generates the words for you. In fact, I found the generative AI overall to be pretty useless, and in some cases, even worse than that. Wrong! I admit; I did try it for social media posts briefly. I decided it wasn't worth it.

People who have been following for long enough might remember a post I did around 2021 about "Words a knowledgeable reader might not know." Grammarly flags words that it thinks a knowledgeable audience would not know and suggests alternatives. This was completely fraught with issues because, as anyone with experience in theEnglish language knows, most synonyms are not actually full synonyms. Words are loaded with nuance,  so even if you choose a word that seems on the surface to be the same, you can alter the meaning of the sentence notably! "Red" is not quite the same as "crimson". Yes, crimson is red, but it’s not the same. So the suggestions it gave (and still does!) are often wrong!  The other reason I never took Grammarly up on those recommendations (unless I was wrong with my choice of word) was because I didn’t think that we should cater to what a "Knowledgable audience" knew or didn’tknow. I feel that we should cater to what they should or might want to know. In other words, I think people should grow by reading and not accept their current limitations.

Even ignoring all those recommendations from Grammarly (which I do), it's only about one in four corrections that I actually accept. To be fair, I write fantasy, so there are lots of terms, names, etc. that are correct the way I have written them, but Grammarly just can’t get its head around them.  So it's increasingly losing its usefulness for me. 

It's worth noting at this point that people edited all my books. Two I did myself. Professional editors have done the rest. 
Back to the point of this post: Book covers.

The covers for my next three books are not typical. I’m still enjoying the art and how this uniqueness makes them stand out, but I’m not entirely sure how they’ll fare in the mass market. And that is because they are different, very different. While it's not been said to me, I think what the publisher is trying to do is ensure it's very, very clear that this is not AI art.

I have seen the sketches and provided feedback throughout the process, so I can promise you it's not AI. Am I perfectly happy with them?  Not necessarily. But I accepted long ago that the publisher is allowed to make certain calls, including things like cover choices. I’m curious now about how they will perform and how they compare to a market that has been inundated with, to be fair, exceptionally well put together AI-generated covers.

The inside content hasn’t changed—it is the same "Me" on the page—but my covers here vary markedly from what I have ever seen before, coming out published.  I don’t think they detract from the story. I think they look a little more classic, but they are different, and I’m not sure how that will affect people's interest in the book.

What do you think?  Let me know below or send me a message from the contact page!

As always, a few freebies are coming up, and I’m going to include the links below. Get them quickly, though, because they end at the end of the month.

And if you are interested in any of these upcoming books, despite or because of their covers, take a look at the website launch pages or follow me online. To walk to the sands releases on September 25, Lione on October 25, and Corelands on November 25. Otherwise, see me out at the Christmas market, which I understand is November 29 and 30th this year!

---

---

This one is for pre-order sales!

---

And lastly, Review copies! Free books in exchange for a review. No sign up required!