Latest / Substack Writers Salon / Shall You Create Your Book Cover With AI

Transcript

Shall You Create Your Book Cover With AI · Substack Writers Salon

0:00
SPEAKER_00: all right hi so we are live uh sorry you guys we were talking about the word cup
0:04
SPEAKER_00: because pablo's from spain so anyway hi everyone uh to another episode of
0:09
SPEAKER_00: the Substack writer's salon and today i have with me uh pablo yanes gonzalez uh
0:18
SPEAKER_00: so pablo is a photographer and uh he's also the founder of a website called
0:27
SPEAKER_00: be your cover so i'm gonna show this website and we are gonna talk a bit about it
0:34
SPEAKER_00: and see um the we're gonna talk about the pluses and minuses
0:38
SPEAKER_00: of creating your book cover with ai so without further ado i'm gonna go ahead
0:45
SPEAKER_00: and share my screen and um
0:49
SPEAKER_00: so this is basically the site for people who are gonna watch the replay and
0:53
SPEAKER_00: as i see this site let you create your cover as it says in seconds
1:00
SPEAKER_00: so this is how it looks like but i'm gonna let pablo tell us about it
1:04
SPEAKER_00: and why did he start it and how this uh platform uh works so pablo
1:10
SPEAKER_02: yeah uh yeah well hello everyone yeah as you said i'm the founder of be your cover
1:15
SPEAKER_02: and yeah uh be your cover allows you to create your book cover in a matter
1:19
SPEAKER_02: of seconds a matter of minutes based on your title genre and blurb or summary
1:26
SPEAKER_02: um what is uh what is the special part of video cover compared to other generic
1:32
SPEAKER_02: or other ai tools is that it is adapted to the general conventions to the specifics
1:39
SPEAKER_02: of book cover designing um this is very important because um many people think
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SPEAKER_02: that um for a book cover any image is
1:50
SPEAKER_02: visible or any image is suitable but it's important to use a design
1:55
SPEAKER_02: that is following the general conventions for your genre
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SPEAKER_02: so this tool video cover is adapted to follow the general conventions for your cover
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SPEAKER_02: and to use metaphors or elements based on your book content so this is video cover
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SPEAKER_00: so what made you decide to create this platform are you
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SPEAKER_00: an author like you know your background is in photography so what got you
2:22
SPEAKER_00: into this whole book publishing business
2:25
SPEAKER_02: well i have over 15 years of experience as a photographer but many
2:32
SPEAKER_02: of those years were as a book cover photographer so i worked closely with authors
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SPEAKER_02: and with agencies that used my images to create book covers based
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SPEAKER_02: on those images many designers used those images those pictures those photographs i
2:51
SPEAKER_02: took to
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SPEAKER_02: for bookovers and uh two or three years ago i discovered dali that it was one of
3:02
SPEAKER_02: the first ai models created by open ai and at that time it was pretty basic
3:07
SPEAKER_02: but i was really surprised uh and yeah um it amazed me how with
3:13
SPEAKER_02: a few words you could get okay maybe not a very realistic or very accurate
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SPEAKER_02: image but you you had something that was close to what you asked for so at that time
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SPEAKER_02: that blew my mind and i was discussing
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SPEAKER_02: with some fellow photographers okay this is maybe something
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SPEAKER_02: that is gonna affect us this is something that we will we might need to learn about
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SPEAKER_02: and we might need to work with this along with other i don't know techniques or or
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SPEAKER_02: maybe yeah at the time i had to hire models i had to look for clothes i had to look
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SPEAKER_02: for locations but with the ai you have everything in a matter of seconds with just
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SPEAKER_02: a few words
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SPEAKER_02: it was clear that that was going to change the world as we know it
4:04
SPEAKER_02: so yeah some photographers were agreed some photographers didn't agree so yeah
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SPEAKER_02: a year and a half ago i decided to build this platform for indie authors
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SPEAKER_02: to allow them to get book covers professional book covers with a tight budget
4:26
SPEAKER_02: because i always say the same if you have the budget for a good designer
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SPEAKER_02: three hundred four hundred five hundred dollars or even more yeah
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SPEAKER_02: a good designer will create a better book cover than ai but if you are
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SPEAKER_02: a tight budget maybe you should try it because uh yeah it's not a book cover that
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SPEAKER_02: is created by a human designer
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SPEAKER_02: a human assignment designer will have probably better skills better design skills
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SPEAKER_02: better design taste but you will get a pretty good book cover for quite less than
5:00
SPEAKER_02: a human designer and that is an interesting debate i would say okay so the
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SPEAKER_00: the book covers are created from ai do you do you use stock images at all or no
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SPEAKER_00: or just all ai
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SPEAKER_02: all of the images all of the book covers are created from scratch by ai and all
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SPEAKER_02: of them are different and created at one time so the ai that you use is it like
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SPEAKER_00: a mix of gemini and claude or did you create your own or how do you talk to the ai
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SPEAKER_00: to create this
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SPEAKER_02: there are several models involved
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SPEAKER_02: because this is important again not all models are good for book covers
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SPEAKER_02: and not all models are good for specific genres so it's a combination of models
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SPEAKER_02: of LLMs and of AI models
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SPEAKER_00: okay so lately there's been a push against ai generated material in publishing
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SPEAKER_00: and there's a lot of been controversy if you've been reading the news lately
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SPEAKER_00: about uh this oh they discovered this author it was mostly self-published author
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SPEAKER_00: used ai after they acquired like big publisher and so they decided to retract
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SPEAKER_00: the contract and all of that
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SPEAKER_00: and do you think there would be also a push against
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SPEAKER_00: the ai covers ai generated covers the same way they are pushed
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SPEAKER_00: against ai generated content for example now in amazon you have to disclose
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SPEAKER_00: if you use ai i think in the content i'm not sure if you have to disclose the cover
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SPEAKER_00: as well so if you can tell me about that and how you're going around uh
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SPEAKER_00: the restrictions to uh ai generated covers
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SPEAKER_02: yeah uh yeah uh first of all yes if you have uh
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SPEAKER_02: an age-generated book cover you also have to disclose that to amazon there's also
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SPEAKER_02: an option to disclose that uh currently there's no uh there's no impact on the
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SPEAKER_02: on anything in amazon based on if you disclose us your image as
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SPEAKER_02: an ai image generated or not but you i always recommend to disclose it if you are
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SPEAKER_02: if you have used ai for your book cover
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SPEAKER_02: and yeah there's been uh some people against of against of the use of of ai
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SPEAKER_02: for images for book covers and some people that are still using ai images
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SPEAKER_02: for book covers um i see the future uh more pro ai
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SPEAKER_02: because of the cost
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SPEAKER_02: and how um how ai is evolving um again i always say this video cover is not here
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SPEAKER_02: to replace human designers it's also here to help human designers because um one of
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SPEAKER_02: the features is that if you already have
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SPEAKER_02: a human design book cover you can also generate your full wrap cover your paper bag
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SPEAKER_02: or hardcover with a couple of clicks so it also helps
8:01
SPEAKER_00: designers to work faster how so how so if i'm a designer or maybe when we in
8:08
SPEAKER_00: a bit you can show us around i would love to see that but let's say okay
8:13
SPEAKER_00: so i'm i'm gonna say
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SPEAKER_00: so i have uh i help people publish their books i have i help my clients
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SPEAKER_00: through my small imprint and i have a book cover designer that works with me
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SPEAKER_00: so how would he use your service to generate covers faster
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SPEAKER_02: i will tell you how some designers are already using video cover
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SPEAKER_02: to help clients it's pretty useful for iterating and for defining what
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SPEAKER_02: the customer expects it's easier to okay i have some instruction
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SPEAKER_02: from my client i put this in video cover and i have 10 20 options
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SPEAKER_02: to show my client okay is this what you expect which one is
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SPEAKER_02: closer to what you expect,
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SPEAKER_02: what do you like,
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SPEAKER_02: what you don't like.
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SPEAKER_02: Okay, and based on that
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SPEAKER_02: I will create my design from scratch
9:06
SPEAKER_02: as a human designer.
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SPEAKER_02: That's one option.
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SPEAKER_02: Another option is
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SPEAKER_02: are you okay with using AI
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SPEAKER_02: for your book cover?
9:12
SPEAKER_02: Okay, if so
9:14
SPEAKER_02: let's do it this way
9:15
SPEAKER_02: Let's start with these 10-20 options
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SPEAKER_02: and let's iterate
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SPEAKER_02: based on this
9:20
SPEAKER_02: using AI
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SPEAKER_02: that's another option okay
9:24
SPEAKER_02: so this is how human designers are using video cover right now other option
9:28
SPEAKER_02: if you are an author and you don't want to spend some days
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SPEAKER_02: because yeah some people say okay yeah i'm okay with human designers
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SPEAKER_02: but it's it's taking days or weeks to get the final result that's video cover tend
9:43
SPEAKER_02: to be faster because you can generate one image in 40 seconds and another book cover
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SPEAKER_02: in another 40 seconds and
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SPEAKER_02: yeah you can iterate and you might have your final cover in a matter
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SPEAKER_02: of 20 minutes 15 minutes if you iterate a lot yeah
10:02
SPEAKER_02: in 15 minutes you might have your book cover including audiobook cover full wrap
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SPEAKER_02: cover paperback or hardcover maybe if you want a free text version to add
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SPEAKER_02: a text outside video cover you can also have that so yeah it's a matter of speed
10:20
SPEAKER_02: and budget
10:22
SPEAKER_00: okay and how much do you sell that uh like subscription based
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SPEAKER_02: or how does this work i i don't like subscriptions
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SPEAKER_02: when they are not needed i'm tired of subscription as a customer so
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SPEAKER_02: and i understood uh that yeah there are many kinds of authors
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SPEAKER_02: and there are many kinds of designers and many kind
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SPEAKER_02: of publishers and for independent authors you have a one-time payment uh 19
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SPEAKER_02: or 39 19 gives you access to 10 credits and one download and 39 gives you access
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SPEAKER_02: to all the pro features a an ai chat
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SPEAKER_02: with an ai expert to analyze your covers the food wrap functionality
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SPEAKER_02: the marketing resources you can create mock-ups based on your covers a lot
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SPEAKER_02: of pro tools with this 39 one-time payment that gives you actually two
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SPEAKER_02: of those pro tools and also 50 credits and unlimited downloads
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SPEAKER_00: so how many how many credits do you need to create one cover
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SPEAKER_02: one credit is one cover uh but youth authors usually iterate
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SPEAKER_02: so they get their first version but they might want okay
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SPEAKER_02: the main element maybe instead of uh princess with a sword i want a dragon
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SPEAKER_02: behind her so i need another iteration that's one credit
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SPEAKER_02: if you want uh marketing resources like yeah mock-ups for facebook or whatever
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SPEAKER_02: and that's one credit per marketing visuals um yeah most of
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SPEAKER_02: the features is one credit per creation one credit player per cover for example
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SPEAKER_02: the only feature that takes more than one credit is the full wrap cover
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SPEAKER_02: that you need um
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SPEAKER_02: between two and three two and four credits for a full wrap cover for
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SPEAKER_02: a full paperback so with four credits you would have their full wrap let's say most
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SPEAKER_02: of the authors based on the analytics we had they tend to use four or five credits
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SPEAKER_02: to get their final image that's the ebook cover okay they get their ebook cover
12:38
SPEAKER_02: with four or five credits
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SPEAKER_02: after that if you want an audiobook cover based on that that's another credit
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SPEAKER_02: if you want the full wrap we said between two and four credits that's it's
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SPEAKER_02: with 15 credits most of the authors can without doubt create five six covers
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SPEAKER_02: for six different book covers with the full asset i mean paperback audiobook
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SPEAKER_02: with no problem five five books five six books no problem
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SPEAKER_02: but that also depends on you if you have a very specific need
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SPEAKER_02: for your book cover you will need more iterations because yeah that is one of the
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SPEAKER_02: the topics that ai is not handling well so far you would get 95 of
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SPEAKER_02: the book cover you want that's
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SPEAKER_02: two three four iterations but if you want a specific font with a specific position
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SPEAKER_02: of your main element on the cover if you have very specifics
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SPEAKER_02: that will get more iterations because yeah ai is still not good
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SPEAKER_02: at following strict instructions okay so but this is mostly
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SPEAKER_00: for self-published authors because traditional publishers are not going
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SPEAKER_00: to accept ai generated cover correct
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SPEAKER_02: um some publishers because we all i talked about one-time payments
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SPEAKER_02: but we also have subscription for companies for self publishers some
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SPEAKER_02: of them are using video cover on a subscription-based plan
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SPEAKER_02: and they are creating book covers with video cover they some of them
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SPEAKER_02: use the cover to create the final book cover and some of them use it to iterate
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SPEAKER_02: and have a draft to show to their clients if those clients are not okay
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SPEAKER_02: with using ai for for their covers but yeah there are some publishers that are
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SPEAKER_02: against the use of ai so they will never use ai no matter what no matter if it's
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SPEAKER_02: for iterating or it is for the final results and some of them are open to use it
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SPEAKER_02: if the customer agrees to use it i'm not talking about penguin random house
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SPEAKER_02: or bigger or big companies i'm talking about small publishers that are yeah starting
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SPEAKER_02: to adapt to current times okay so we have questions here
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SPEAKER_00: from carl he says do you have control of the image
15:11
SPEAKER_02: yes yes you have control for example let's put an example let's put some example and
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SPEAKER_02: if you want if your book is about a thriller with a cabin in
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SPEAKER_02: the woods you can instruct the AI to create a book cover with a cabin in the woods
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SPEAKER_02: and if the cabin is red you can say a red cabin in the woods and
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SPEAKER_02: the book cover will follow the general conventions for your book if it is
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SPEAKER_02: a thriller you will use some specific
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SPEAKER_02: design matters or say and we'll put your red cabin in the boots
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SPEAKER_02: and you can keep iterating if you like the book cover but you want to change the
15:53
SPEAKER_02: the kind of trees or whatever you can instruct okay i like this book cover
15:57
SPEAKER_02: but i want to change the trees from pines to i don't know any other kind
16:02
SPEAKER_00: of tree okay so how long has this platform been online
16:10
SPEAKER_02: A year and a half, two months, three months more or less.
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SPEAKER_00: And how are you guys doing in terms of subscription?
16:19
SPEAKER_02: good good uh we are over well the tool has been used by over 10 000 authors already
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SPEAKER_02: so i i couldn't imagine that by now i would have uh like 10 000 users already
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SPEAKER_02: so it's honestly over over my expectations uh
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SPEAKER_02: the feedback has been huge uh we started with a few features and most of
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SPEAKER_02: the features that you can see now in video cover is because they are they exist
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SPEAKER_02: because
16:46
SPEAKER_02: authors suggested those those uh features for example the audible cover creation
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SPEAKER_02: that was a suggestion by the author the full wrap cover it was
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SPEAKER_02: pretty requested and it was not at the beginning um
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SPEAKER_02: the ai chat cover um that's another another feature there are a lot of features
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SPEAKER_02: that are been that have been requested by youth by users within releasing uh
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SPEAKER_02: for example we started with a kdp uh
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SPEAKER_02: and kdp full wrap dimensions only three dimensions but now we've extended to all
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SPEAKER_02: the existing dimensions in kdp and yesterday we released uh
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SPEAKER_02: Burns and Nobles dimensions also, so you can use paperback
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SPEAKER_02: and hardcover. You can create
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SPEAKER_02: paperback and hardcovers
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SPEAKER_02: book covers
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SPEAKER_02: with
17:38
SPEAKER_02: Burns and Noble
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SPEAKER_02: dimensions. So yeah
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SPEAKER_02: doing great honestly
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SPEAKER_00: I'm very happy
17:46
SPEAKER_00: Good
17:47
SPEAKER_00: Where are most of your customers from
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SPEAKER_00: before we're going to try this live?
17:51
SPEAKER_02: From the US
17:53
SPEAKER_00: from the u.s.
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SPEAKER_00: and how did you reach them online or yeah uh it's mostly google google uh
18:02
SPEAKER_02: so like seo yes and uh already chagipity
18:07
SPEAKER_02: and claude uh is recommending recommending us yes oh wow okay
18:12
SPEAKER_00: so i'm gonna try this live and okay good try for free yes okay you might need
18:20
SPEAKER_02: to register uh okay
18:23
SPEAKER_00: all right so let's say book titles so i can come up
18:26
SPEAKER_00: with anything okay uh actually you know what let me try some
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SPEAKER_00: of my already published books okay oh that's uh that's
18:36
SPEAKER_00: a good challenge yeah let's see uh author name okay
18:47
SPEAKER_00: genre fiction uh thriller
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SPEAKER_00: and mystery others let me try
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SPEAKER_00: uh i'm just gonna say speculative fiction do you have this uh no not not
19:00
SPEAKER_02: that one okay that that textbook is for subtitle okay
19:06
SPEAKER_00: so maybe we can say fiction thriller
19:08
SPEAKER_00: and mystery uh
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SPEAKER_02: psychological failure okay okay yeah that that's something uh funny
19:16
SPEAKER_02: because uh
19:18
SPEAKER_02: a lot of authors it's like they have the very specific subgenre that it's impossible
19:26
SPEAKER_00: to have all of them okay so would you are you open to adding more of course
19:31
SPEAKER_00: of course okay all right so i'm gonna i'm gonna copy the description i'm going
19:36
SPEAKER_00: to my amazon page and see what you guys and we're gonna compare both
19:43
SPEAKER_00: and let's see if my if my design i'm gonna let my designer watch it after this
19:48
SPEAKER_00: and see what he thinks no no pressure pablo no pressure okay but but where
19:55
SPEAKER_02: where did it go ah here it is but uh first of all you you put speculative fiction
20:00
SPEAKER_02: as subtitle if you don't want that subtitle okay you can leave it empty
20:04
SPEAKER_02: if you don't want a subtitle but if you have one you can put one
20:09
SPEAKER_00: okay so the subtitles yes tales of karma okay let's try it
20:15
SPEAKER_02: and you said it's gonna generate it in seconds yes yes well you might you will need
20:21
SPEAKER_02: to register okay okay continue
20:25
SPEAKER_00: with google okay fine let's do google okay
20:31
SPEAKER_01: continue
20:35
SPEAKER_01: all right
20:37
SPEAKER_02: here you can choose you can say okay and i can skip and let the ai design which kind
20:43
SPEAKER_02: of style will be used for the cover or you can thumbs up or down which with
20:51
SPEAKER_02: a few examples would you like or we don't what you don't like that's up
20:54
SPEAKER_02: to you you can click on skip and let the ai design or you can thumbs up
20:58
SPEAKER_02: or thumbs down depending on for example this one maybe for if you like it it's fine
21:03
SPEAKER_02: if you don't like it you can
21:05
SPEAKER_00: yeah it's fine i like it that's up to you
21:10
SPEAKER_02: if you like it don't worry i'm not i'm not looking okay yeah i don't like my designs
21:15
SPEAKER_02: it's okay are these are your designs uh this is these are some of the designs
21:20
SPEAKER_02: that are being that are being used for uh generating some of the styles
21:25
SPEAKER_02: that are used in in so are these real covers or what
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SPEAKER_02: these are uh covers created with video cover but uh not used in real uh
21:36
SPEAKER_02: in real books okay so now it's uh what's what's behind this
21:43
SPEAKER_02: the ai now it's analyzing what which images you used what you selected or you liked
21:48
SPEAKER_02: and now and it's also analyzing the content of your book
21:51
SPEAKER_02: and the genre of your book and it's merging all of that to create
21:57
SPEAKER_02: the best two covers possible for your book based on genre conventions on the title
22:06
SPEAKER_02: on what you have here if you click on the top right corner you can enter
22:12
SPEAKER_02: or click escape but this is a little explanation on what you can do
22:19
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay. So let me see it down.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: So it generated only two, right?
22:26
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
22:28
SPEAKER_02: And you have also five more credits to try out.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: okay so what if i like this one and then okay uh object on color field what
22:40
SPEAKER_00: if i want to change the like and how did you choose the fonts based on
22:44
SPEAKER_02: the general recommendation or yes exactly the fonts were selected by the ai uh based
22:51
SPEAKER_02: on the general conventions since this is a thriller
22:53
SPEAKER_02: it's more it's less it's more sans serif it's more less no handwritten fonts yeah
23:09
SPEAKER_02: now you want to for that you want to change the that specific cover the cover on
23:18
SPEAKER_02: the right right yeah
23:20
SPEAKER_02: okay in that case if you hover over the cover
23:24
SPEAKER_02: if you close this light box okay close this one yes and
23:29
SPEAKER_02: if you hover you see four icons the second starting on the right the second on
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SPEAKER_02: the right or the fourth one yeah yeah that is the the ai chat you can chat
23:46
SPEAKER_02: as you were going to do that
23:48
SPEAKER_02: or you can use the now this chat is analyzing your cover
23:53
SPEAKER_02: and will tell you okay this is fine or this should be we can improve on this
23:58
SPEAKER_02: or whatever but you can also instruct directly there okay I want this change
24:04
SPEAKER_02: or whatever or this specific change or I want to change the background
24:07
SPEAKER_02: or I don't like the font so just new fonts and you can chat with the AI and
24:16
SPEAKER_02: this chat will also return some suggestions maybe we can uh yes and you can do that
24:23
SPEAKER_00: so i want a woman's face okay in it uh hold on um okay perfect let me see
24:33
SPEAKER_02: you can send if you click on send yeah
24:36
SPEAKER_00: but i have uh i'm just gonna make sure there's no spelling mistakes so
24:42
SPEAKER_00: that okay don't worry there's killing mistakes i know but just that so
24:46
SPEAKER_00: that will understand me okay let's see
24:54
SPEAKER_00: i'm putting you under
24:55
SPEAKER_00: the test here pablo yeah yeah no problem
24:58
SPEAKER_00: i'm a journalist by training so i have to do this okay it's a great way
25:03
SPEAKER_00: to cover all right double exposure silhouette the burden
25:06
SPEAKER_00: of touch eyes uh okay let me do this one
25:13
SPEAKER_01: i'm soft i like i like this this exercise
25:16
SPEAKER_02: because it's also good to see how an author uses the tool
25:22
SPEAKER_02: because sometimes you are always focused on feature features but maybe
25:27
SPEAKER_02: The way an author uses the tool is different from what you expected.
25:31
SPEAKER_02: And now you have a suggestion of the prompt that will be used,
25:34
SPEAKER_02: and you can generate a new version.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: So it's going to generate a whole new version?
25:38
SPEAKER_00: It's not going to use the hand?
25:42
SPEAKER_02: Propose New Cover...
25:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, in this case, it's a whole-new version.
25:48
SPEAKER_02: But with your hand.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: It's actually pretty nice!
25:55
SPEAKER_00: my issue would be to like for example as an author see how
26:01
SPEAKER_00: the text is too close there should be some space here
26:06
SPEAKER_00: and here they're just too close and yeah you can try to use the phone tool there's
26:16
SPEAKER_02: a phone tool that you can use if you like that one
26:19
SPEAKER_02: for example let's say I like this one okay let's say you like
26:22
SPEAKER_02: that one you can close this chat
26:25
SPEAKER_02: okay and uh the fourth pattern the fourth icon on the book cover
26:35
SPEAKER_02: yes the
26:36
SPEAKER_02: the fourth one uh the the one the that one
26:40
SPEAKER_02: yes okay you see there are four tools the one the first one is the edit title
26:45
SPEAKER_02: on offer okay with with that one uh you the ai will analyze the fonts and we'll try
26:52
SPEAKER_02: to to suggest new fonts new font locations so you can edit manually let's try
26:59
SPEAKER_02: that one this is on on beta because um it sometimes struggles with some kind
27:04
SPEAKER_02: of fonts but we are releasing a new feature next week that will
27:08
SPEAKER_02: work with any kind of tool for example for
27:10
SPEAKER_02: the main title i don't think this is going to work but let's let's let's try it
27:15
SPEAKER_02: and you can also instruct in the chat to change the the font as you said okay cool
27:21
SPEAKER_00: and i see people are joining i hope you everyone who's here is enjoying this
27:25
SPEAKER_00: exercise i'm grilling pablo on how he creates ai covers a poor pablo has to deal
27:33
SPEAKER_00: with me but okay no problem i love it okay so i'm here so
27:38
SPEAKER_00: okay so here i see here these are not too close okay so i want
27:42
SPEAKER_00: to change make this capital okay uh and then you can take the font also on
27:48
SPEAKER_02: the top you you see that there are um you can change
27:53
SPEAKER_02: the size uh you can use uh different fonts whatever i see okay color
28:03
SPEAKER_02: does it suggest colors or it in this case i don't remember if here we suggest color
28:10
SPEAKER_02: if you click on the top left button that's in the you just see the bar
28:15
SPEAKER_02: with it says oswald and 80 if you click on yeah okay so i like the cover what is
28:23
SPEAKER_00: the back
28:24
SPEAKER_02: okay now you want to create the full wrap cover okay the back and the spine okay
28:31
SPEAKER_02: then save on the top right set okay save how many crates do you have left
28:36
SPEAKER_02: because maybe yeah three let's try if not i will add you some crates on the back
28:44
SPEAKER_02: and the first one the the one on the left is the comment you created right now with
28:49
SPEAKER_02: a different uh font now uh the last icon that is that is the export button
28:55
SPEAKER_02: the export button uh the the one in blue okay you see there are five icons
29:01
SPEAKER_02: the last one on the right it's the if if you click on that button
29:07
SPEAKER_02: the last one yeah perfect you will see the free text audiobook
29:14
SPEAKER_02: and full print cover click on full print cover okay now you have on
29:18
SPEAKER_02: the full print cover editor you need
29:20
SPEAKER_02: to select frame size i don't know let's do hard cover let's do solid color let's do
29:28
SPEAKER_02: whatever you need to fill the let's say perfect and now generate
29:37
SPEAKER_02: now based on that you know based on the amount of pages the spine is thicker
29:44
SPEAKER_02: or not based on the trim size the size of the cover the full wrap cover is different
29:51
SPEAKER_02: so now there are some calculations on the back and
29:55
SPEAKER_02: the AI is adapting your front cover to the right dimensions of the full wrap cover
30:00
SPEAKER_01: and it's suggesting some back cover colors for your full wrap cover
30:06
SPEAKER_02: and in a matter of 10 seconds you will see some result okay uh as you can see maybe
30:12
SPEAKER_02: the the front cover i don't like how it was uh generated because
30:16
SPEAKER_02: as you can see there's some it's dark yeah yeah so you know
30:19
SPEAKER_02: the back cover is too dark the front cover has like frames on the on the edges
30:25
SPEAKER_02: that sometimes can happen and it will happen if you are live for for sure uh so uh
30:30
SPEAKER_02: if you go to the left you see front right
30:34
SPEAKER_02: yeah section then it says front okay click there and click on regenerate rough
30:40
SPEAKER_02: because i like him on the on the right you know i i would like to extend
30:45
SPEAKER_02: the front properly let's see if the ai is capable of doing so or not
30:50
SPEAKER_02: or maybe we failed but i hope we don't
30:54
SPEAKER_02: and okay are you don't like are you don't like the
30:57
SPEAKER_02: the back cover color right you may be
31:03
SPEAKER_02: we can we can do we can change that uh once
31:07
SPEAKER_02: the front cover is okay i didn't like this either again last try okay okay that's uh
31:15
SPEAKER_00: so while it's generating how many people do you have working for you
31:19
SPEAKER_02: or is it only you uh it's me with some punctual um collaborators
31:26
SPEAKER_02: but i'm the i'm a solopreneur and uh yeah i have some people working partially
31:34
SPEAKER_02: with me for some specific development topics and some specific marketing topics
31:38
SPEAKER_00: but it's mainly me and is that your your full-time job uh not so far but uh in
31:47
SPEAKER_02: a very near future it will be yes okay okay
31:51
SPEAKER_02: well finally we have
31:52
SPEAKER_02: the front cover i wanted okay this is this didn't cost any any credit for you okay
31:57
SPEAKER_02: if the front cover was running generated any regeneration is free for for
32:02
SPEAKER_02: the author okay so for the back cover if you go on the top left back now you on the
32:09
SPEAKER_02: on the right side you see colors for the font text boxes for the for the for
32:14
SPEAKER_02: the text you said you didn't like the colors on of the of the back cover right
32:19
SPEAKER_02: if you scroll down
32:22
SPEAKER_02: yeah you scroll down you see on the bottom suggested colors based on okay
32:28
SPEAKER_02: so you can select one and apply color okay
32:32
SPEAKER_02: and the color will be applied uh if you don't like those either you can select on
32:37
SPEAKER_02: the the squared one the squared color
32:40
SPEAKER_02: and you will um um you will you can change okay you do you see the square color on
32:47
SPEAKER_02: the left besides the applied color there you can you have a picker and whatever okay
32:56
SPEAKER_02: on the top you have the text if you have your blurb
32:59
SPEAKER_02: or whatever you can add your your your your texts also if you want to add
33:07
SPEAKER_02: an author image an author portrait you can add so
33:13
SPEAKER_02: and once you have it on
33:15
SPEAKER_02: the top right export and you have it okay so i added the description and
33:20
SPEAKER_00: then i can move it like this yes
33:24
SPEAKER_02: okay and then i can make it yeah you can uh there's uh on
33:29
SPEAKER_02: the right you you see font size and text width you can change that uh in
33:35
SPEAKER_02: the right menu ah i see yeah uh you can also change
33:40
SPEAKER_02: the is it called alignment alignment the alignment of
33:43
SPEAKER_00: the yeah you can change okay i want to i want to add an author image that's
33:48
SPEAKER_00: the last thing okay um
33:51
SPEAKER_02: it was on uh where i had this i don't remember now okay on the left uh images
33:59
SPEAKER_02: if i don't if i recall correctly yeah uh you can add an image layer so
34:06
SPEAKER_02: if you click there ah okay you can add your image your your portrait for example or
34:11
SPEAKER_02: if you have a badge or uh many people use video code for non-fiction uh books
34:18
SPEAKER_02: for example for i know um
34:21
SPEAKER_02: um health topics or whatever uh they add their badge or the company logo uh instead
34:29
SPEAKER_02: of the of the of the portrait and they can use that too so yeah you can move around
34:36
SPEAKER_02: the the image so
34:41
SPEAKER_02: you can also reduce the size and crop
34:44
SPEAKER_00: or whatever okay yeah we're uh
34:49
SPEAKER_00: so let's say the back here that's the description can you move the text yeah you can
34:54
SPEAKER_00: and why okay so you move this i move this okay not bad and that would be like
35:00
SPEAKER_02: the author bio here right yeah yeah exactly you also have a placeholder for
35:05
SPEAKER_02: the barcode if you are not going to use barcode for reverberation you can disable it
35:09
SPEAKER_02: on at the bottom and okay that's nice it will not be rendered in the final pdf
35:16
SPEAKER_02: it's just a placeholder okay the barcode and once you are ready on
35:20
SPEAKER_02: the top right you see export uh pdf pro yeah well in this case since you are not pro
35:29
SPEAKER_02: you cannot export it okay okay and and and you see do you see that you have
35:34
SPEAKER_02: a watermark on the front cover that says yeah i see so you have two more yeah
35:38
SPEAKER_00: so this is how you try it okay this is actually pretty nice
35:42
SPEAKER_00: and um all right i'm gonna stop sharing okay so this is great
35:46
SPEAKER_00: so what are your future plans uh pablo um i saw like we met through Substack um
35:54
SPEAKER_00: because i think you joined one of my lives uh but how are you planning to scale
36:00
SPEAKER_00: and expand you know just talking the business side of this
36:04
SPEAKER_02: uh that's a great question um i plan to be more involved in the in
36:11
SPEAKER_02: the author community because as i said my background is more as
36:15
SPEAKER_02: a photographer my contact with the end of photography was as a provider more
36:21
SPEAKER_02: of yeah more like a provider instead of a part of the community so i'm willing to
36:27
SPEAKER_02: to participate in any
36:29
SPEAKER_02: webinar podcast community newsletters as much as i can
36:36
SPEAKER_02: i also wanted
36:38
SPEAKER_02: to give some promo to your audience because i like that you invited me to to your
36:47
SPEAKER_02: to your place so if any of you any of your audience anyone from your audience uses
36:53
SPEAKER_02: the code natasha it means they visit videocover.com slash natasha they will get 20
37:00
SPEAKER_02: extra credits if they purchase pro so instead of 20 they will get 70
37:05
SPEAKER_02: so i will keep i will send you the link later if you want to okay yeah that's great
37:10
SPEAKER_02: and uh yeah i want
37:11
SPEAKER_02: to attend any podcast any community any youtube channel wherever that's one of
37:16
SPEAKER_02: the plans and um i i don't i don't use paid ads because i don't like them too much
37:25
SPEAKER_02: but maybe in the future i would have to uh and i want
37:28
SPEAKER_02: to grow organically i don't want to expand too aggressively because i still want
37:34
SPEAKER_02: to provide the best experience as possible
37:37
SPEAKER_02: i provide support personally i always read any support tickets any contact form
37:43
SPEAKER_02: anything i read it myself and i reply myself so i want to keep it that i want
37:48
SPEAKER_02: to keep it personal and um that's why i'm good as i am right now but i would like
37:56
SPEAKER_02: to uh yeah try to
38:00
SPEAKER_02: be part of the indie author community attending maybe webinars like yours
38:06
SPEAKER_02: or podcasts writing some guest posts or things like that because it's a bit hard
38:14
SPEAKER_02: to expand a tool like this because of
38:18
SPEAKER_02: we talked previously and there are many people against ai and honestly i've received
38:22
SPEAKER_02: a lot of hate by many people from the this community let's say i understand
38:31
SPEAKER_02: that some people is against ai but i am
38:34
SPEAKER_02: a photographer i love photography i still do photography
38:37
SPEAKER_02: and i've built this this tool because i think it can help some people against
38:42
SPEAKER_02: the again this is not against designers this is not to replace designers this is
38:48
SPEAKER_02: some tool that you can use or you cannot i know indie authors usually struggle at
38:55
SPEAKER_02: the beginnings because uh yeah it's hard to spend two years writing a book and
39:02
SPEAKER_02: then having no sales and then you have someone tell you that you have to spend money
39:09
SPEAKER_02: on the good book cover you have to spend money on marketing you have to spend money
39:13
SPEAKER_02: on whatever
39:14
SPEAKER_02: and this is a tool to help those authors that have
39:17
SPEAKER_02: a tight budget that's it i always recommend to use a human design if you have
39:21
SPEAKER_00: the budget but if not you can try this and what kind of hate you received
39:26
SPEAKER_00: and how did you receive it like email
39:28
SPEAKER_02: or like how yeah uh i've received um emails uh literally saying that i suck
39:38
SPEAKER_02: for no reason and honestly like okay and and i started to post some reels
39:47
SPEAKER_02: and some videos on tiktok and yeah people saying that i am against the
39:56
SPEAKER_02: the environment because ai consumes a lot of water and whatever that i should be
40:02
SPEAKER_02: in jail because i'm stealing people's jobs and
40:07
SPEAKER_02: a lot of things that okay i i agree that if you don't like it okay i'm open
40:12
SPEAKER_02: to discussion but don't waste your time writing these kind of comments and hate
40:19
SPEAKER_02: a tool that it's i mean i'm trying to to
40:22
SPEAKER_02: to pay my bills you know it's yeah it's i'm also a a an artist
40:27
SPEAKER_02: and i love i know i love art so
40:31
SPEAKER_02: um unfortunately there's been evolution that it's it's it's it made jobs disappear
40:41
SPEAKER_02: and that's evolution and yeah my father used to take pictures with film
40:49
SPEAKER_02: and i was born with a digital camera
40:55
SPEAKER_02: it's technology um i mean yeah we can discuss if it's fair or not fair
41:02
SPEAKER_02: that aie um companies are using images with kind of which kind of images is
41:10
SPEAKER_02: that fine it is not fine but i will i always say okay do you know how much money
41:16
SPEAKER_02: the agency used to pay me for a book cover or i also work with agency
41:23
SPEAKER_02: with microstock agencies
41:25
SPEAKER_02: i i used to get one two or three cents per image per downloaded image and
41:31
SPEAKER_02: an author would think okay i've hired this human designer for my book cover
41:35
SPEAKER_02: and this is ethic okay but if that human designer used one
41:38
SPEAKER_02: of my pictures i received three cents for that picture is that ethic
41:47
SPEAKER_02: there's there's
41:48
SPEAKER_02: a lot a lot more behind that discussion you know but again
41:55
SPEAKER_02: i'm open to discuss this topic and i totally i'm totally okay if you don't want
42:01
SPEAKER_02: to use ai that's totally fine and i understand why you do it but let's go
42:07
SPEAKER_02: a bit further and let's see okay um if i don't use ai are all
42:12
SPEAKER_02: the other options ethic as well if i use an image from adobe stock is that ethic
42:19
SPEAKER_02: from uh getty images is that ethic
42:24
SPEAKER_02: not
42:24
SPEAKER_02: for using real photography we are saving people's jobs okay photography designing is
42:33
SPEAKER_02: a tough industry and there are a lot of things that many people don't know and
42:39
SPEAKER_02: that are not as ethical as we think okay all right so let me think um
42:50
SPEAKER_00: so you're uh who's competing
42:53
SPEAKER_00: with you who's your competition are there any similar platforms like yours yeah yeah
42:58
SPEAKER_02: yeah yeah but i'm confident to say that uh my platform is the most complete and
43:03
SPEAKER_02: the best one okay so so who's your competition uh well my main competition is uh
43:10
SPEAKER_02: the guy who decides to create the its own book cover with canva for example
43:16
SPEAKER_02: Canva is one of my competitors, because they have a pretty good design tool and you can
43:22
SPEAKER_02: do good stuff with their tools.
43:25
SPEAKER_02: But they don't follow the general comparisons.
43:28
SPEAKER_02: There are other competitors that are focusing on book covers since I launched video cover
43:35
SPEAKER_02: honestly more than one two on three competitors appeared but again they are
43:41
SPEAKER_02: they don't have the FullDrop tool
43:44
SPEAKER_02: they don't have the audiobook tool they don't have
43:46
SPEAKER_02: the marketing resources tool uh they don't have the general convention algorithm
43:53
SPEAKER_02: that i have i i honestly if you are going to try an ai tool try them all
43:59
SPEAKER_02: and i totally hundred percent sure that you are coming back to video cover
44:03
SPEAKER_00: for sure okay so this is great um so anyone from
44:08
SPEAKER_00: the audience uh does anyone have any question for pablo um
44:13
SPEAKER_02: are you gonna yell at him about the air yeah i'm open i'm used to that so no more so
44:20
SPEAKER_00: if you guys in the comments wanna yell at pablo or at me
44:27
SPEAKER_00: we're open to discussion
44:28
SPEAKER_00: so feel free to ask any questions and pablo
44:33
SPEAKER_00: if you wanna say how people can reach you how can they reach your platforms
44:37
SPEAKER_00: if you wanna put it in the chat before we conclude yeah
44:41
SPEAKER_02: yeah sure um let me uh well first of all be your comment.com slash natasha
44:47
SPEAKER_02: so you get the 20x credits uh if you get the pro tool um let me paste that in
44:54
SPEAKER_02: the chat um
44:57
SPEAKER_02: and uh yeah video cover.com uh if you have any doubt anything you want to discuss
45:02
SPEAKER_02: if you want to yell at me you can do that at pablo
45:06
SPEAKER_02: at video cover.com i read every email i read everything even the hate emails too
45:12
SPEAKER_02: so yeah
45:15
SPEAKER_02: again if you are thinking about getting your first book cover
45:20
SPEAKER_02: or yeah many people also okay this is my first book i don't know
45:24
SPEAKER_02: which book cover is going to work they create five or six book covers
45:29
SPEAKER_02: with video cover and they try which one is working which one will work but
45:33
SPEAKER_02: the best okay i try for a couple of weeks one book cover and once i got i have
45:38
SPEAKER_02: the winner
45:39
SPEAKER_02: I use that or I get that one and I give it to a human designer
45:42
SPEAKER_02: and I say, okay, this one worked pretty well.
45:45
SPEAKER_02: Please help me with the design.
45:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I see.
45:49
SPEAKER_02: That's also a good use.
45:51
SPEAKER_00: That's a good news.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: Okay, great.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: And I noticed you're not that active on Substack
45:55
SPEAKER_00: and since we are talking about Substack,
45:58
SPEAKER_00: what are your plans for Substack?
46:00
SPEAKER_00: Because there is a big author community there.
46:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
46:03
SPEAKER_02: I know. But that's the problem of being a solopreneur
46:07
SPEAKER_02: That you have two hands and it is sometimes impossible to decide where to go
46:15
SPEAKER_00: Where are you most active? Where are the authors if you think
46:22
SPEAKER_02: Well my plan first of all is to start uploading videos to YouTube
46:27
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
46:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
46:29
SPEAKER_02: showing the tool or giving some tips on book cover designing then I'm good
46:36
SPEAKER_02: at designing I'm good at photography but I'm not that good at writing
46:42
SPEAKER_02: so Substack could be a bit tricky to me
46:46
SPEAKER_00: You can always use AI.
46:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, that's true, that is true.
46:55
SPEAKER_02: But it's kind of difficult and English is not my main language as you can see.
47:04
SPEAKER_02: Do you think Substack would be a good channel for me to use?
47:10
SPEAKER_00: I think just talk with the author's community there
47:14
SPEAKER_00: and don't just try to sell it to them,
47:18
SPEAKER_00: but create connections with them like this.
47:23
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of indie authors here.
47:28
SPEAKER_00: There's the Substack Bookstore as well by Fleur
47:34
SPEAKER_00: and Christina.
47:35
SPEAKER_00: They created the Substock Bookstore.
47:37
SPEAKER_00: So there's a bunch of things you can do
47:40
SPEAKER_00: on Substack but you know we're that's something you can do um there's a lot
47:44
SPEAKER_00: of authors here so it's
47:46
SPEAKER_02: a good place yeah yeah uh you know what i have my personal Substack account
47:51
SPEAKER_02: and i have my video cover account so um in my personal account i follow
47:55
SPEAKER_02: a few fellow uh podcasters uh content creators related to the community uh
48:03
SPEAKER_02: but uh some of them are also very reluctant to uh
48:08
SPEAKER_02: invite me so that's why i really thank you for inviting me because they think
48:13
SPEAKER_02: that inviting something someone from from the ai world would harm their
48:20
SPEAKER_02: image yeah exactly exactly so it's hard i understand them
48:25
SPEAKER_02: because they are they they have um to preserve their their image
48:30
SPEAKER_02: but it's hard sometimes to to to connect with people without being afraid
48:35
SPEAKER_02: of being uh you know pointed at oh no this is the guy who's doing our jobs and
48:41
SPEAKER_00: it's hard yeah people are very sensitive to ai i'm very open to ai
48:46
SPEAKER_00: and i'm very uh open about talking about it um there's a podcast
48:51
SPEAKER_00: by i can recommend called the creative pen
48:54
SPEAKER_00: She's, you know her, Pjuwana Pan.
48:56
SPEAKER_00: She always talks about AI and she's very open about it.
49:00
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, Pablo, this has been great.
49:03
SPEAKER_00: And for anyone, thank you for everyone who watched us today.
49:08
SPEAKER_00: Just a shout out to Carl, Cindy Almadimia, David White, Colleen McCubin, Crown Years Media.
49:19
SPEAKER_00: Gregory Bourne, and Mirko Excised.
49:23
SPEAKER_00: And thank you all
49:25
SPEAKER_00: and feel free to grab the extra credits
49:30
SPEAKER_00: that Pablo gave you
49:34
SPEAKER_00: thank you for joining us for another episode of the Substack writers salon and
49:38
SPEAKER_00: until we meet again um
49:40
SPEAKER_00: and thank you very much pablo will continue chatting i'm gonna dm you via Substack
49:45
SPEAKER_00: or email you and and we'll keep
49:46
SPEAKER_00: the conversation going thank you very much thank you thank you bye