Thanks Rachael!

Thank you so much, not just for selecting Sick Power Trip, but for consistently supporting and spotlighting the art of book cover design over the years. It’s great to have another champion out there who celebrates the mahi of our small community.

One major UK publisher that I have worked has banned AI from any stage in a book’s production. The rationale being that it defends the sanctity of the book in an age where human authorship begins to be questioned. I think this is the kind of bold thinking that the whole industry needs.

I will acknowledge one painful truth to this. Designing a book cover takes time. This is something which obviously costs money and as book sales slide and publishers tighten their belts, it’s perhaps understandable why they might turn to AI to help them out on the cheap.

Crafting book covers is too fun, too creatively exciting and too culturally important to relinquish to unthinking, unoriginal and artless computer coding.

Whether or not literary prizes should disqualify books because of AI covers is one question, but when I see these I can’t help but feel that they cheaper what’s printed inside and make me doubt the veracity of the entire work.

Beautiful photos courtesy of Bam Bialostocki.

A few pics from the opening last week. Thanks again to everyone who came along and made it such an incredible evening.