Arrest Me, I use AI Generated Images

 (Response to Threads attacks.)

February 10, 2025

 

    I am seriously considering deleting this account. Piracy is illegal. Period. AI images are not. Indies support each other or they should. I invite you to delete me from your list if you must. Let me clue you in. Yes, I have a right to be pissed, disappointed and broken-hearted.

    I spent the weekend searching  online bookstores, and it is unbelievable how many have my books with no contract or connection to Amazon.  Back-orders even. Sales I have not made. Period. Yet, they sold a newly published book, a new book that I have not sold one copy of, according to my reports. Then they stated it was on back order. HMM. This was just published in December, and many I have removed from publication for various reasons.

    I have been dealing with Amazon since the self-publishing became an option. Trust me, I know how the system works. I have pulled all my eBooks from Kindle until this is straightened out.

    eBay is selling a copy of a collection of blogs I was doing on FB years ago, for $60 a book. Published several years ago. This is a backstory on current characters in Guardian WIT series. Many of my followers, at that time, loved it, (5 star ratings for the weekly story.) Which is why I made it a small book and deleted it from FB.

    Several online stores are charging at least $10 per copy more than Amazon for current or past listed books. When I joined this community, it was full of loving, supportive people chasing the same dream as I was. We supported each other.

     Now it's being taken over by schoolyard bullies and activists who only choose the side that suits their own desires and beliefs. Which is fine, but attacking others is just wrong. Whatever happened to adults communicating?

Yes, I did the research, as suggested by a person who read the posts, and found out the truth about AI imaging. It was informative; I agree. Do you know AI has been around since the 1950s and it is still in development? Still needs tweaks, just like computers when they first came out? Phones when they first came out? I didn’t see people cursing us who use them, including those that used word processors and typewriters. They embraced it.

     Now please, with a show of hands, how many of you own neither to make a statement? How many of you have Google, Seri, Alexa? All AI generated? How many of you own none of the above, if you can afford it? Have you never used them? How many of you use free apps, from computer and phone offers, that the style and interface isn’t in use anymore by the original creator,  but computer techs have gotten hold of it and created free or less expensive apps that do the same thing to, not sell, but give away to those that can’t afford to pay upwards of 500 dollars to buy. Do you download it?

     In AI imaging, the only way you are stealing another’s work is by placing their name in the prompt. Which I DO NOT. NEVER HAVE. I don’t make fraudulent works and sell them as originals. I don’t even sell them. I use AI as a tool. Not to mention, I pay for the service I use.  Do you? Are you aware that the free photos you get from the photo site are not all on the up and up, many are scraped from Shutterstock or other stock photo sights others pay for? I know, I used them too, and I actually researched that as well. I Found many ripped from other websites without the photographer’s name or permission from the site they are ripped from.

      I used to be a photographer. When digital cameras came out, do you realize how many traditional photographers closed their doors because of it? Nobody was paying photographers for their artistry, because it was easier on their budget for a friend to take wedding pictures who had some knowledge of light and style, and framing a picture. It’s happening again with phones. The rest of us faded out and retired or closed the doors. It’s progress. We can’t stop it.

    My images are photorealism. Created through my words, explaining a book scene that I am envisioning in my head, and not copying any painting already out there. Not to mention they are edited even more in MY photo program. Especially my covers, which BTW tells a story in itself from the book. I use many images and mold them together uniquely.  I don’t want cookie cutter covers. I want unique memorable ones. Ones that catch the eye enough for a reader to pick it up while they are passing by, and check out. The covers I want would cost me a fortune. Money, I just don’t have.

     I use photorealism, a relatively common style, https://www.britannica.com/art/Photo-realism.  Used by all of you that have photo editing software, It’s an option, not theft. The style is not owned by any one artist.

     Please be my guest. I implore you to research any of my images; I have on any of my pages. I’ve got nothing to hide. They don't belong to any starving artists, nor are they scraped from any artist's webpage. I do not print the images and hang them in galleries, sell them, or claim them as art. They are a means to an end for self-promotion.

     The only thing HUMANS have done with AI is use a variety of works to TRAIN the machine, so, I might add, has many professors. It is JUST a MACHINE that is used as a tool. NOT illegal. "The student learns by depicting the masters." It's interesting how this quote came up on a UK crime show last night when I needed to hear it. God's way of telling me I'm okay. I’m not evil or a thief. It's the others who have the problem. BTW: photorealism is in every photo editing program out there.  If you use it, are you a thief or evil? Guess what it is AI.

     I am not blessed with a large budget to do my writing and marketing. I don’t control the finances or the budget. They believe it's not worth putting money into it if you aren’t guaranteed a high return. They don’t get that my writing is part of my identity. How can they? Nobody can guess how a writer feels about their work.  It’s personal.

      They believe everything is a scam. I’m beginning to see why.  I have very little money in my account, can’t work,  and If I use any money out of a very slim allowance, it will be for an editor, not stuff I have the means to do myself. BTW: are you sure that your graphic artist doesn't secretly use AI. Can you prove they don’t? The guy I paid to do my trailer put together a generic trailer that did nothing for my sales or to further my brand. That is money I will never have back. It makes me very cautious. If I’m going to fail, I’d rather do it myself, not have a stranger who doesn’t even know my book do it for me. If that’s wrong, I’m sorry.

    People brought the original arguments about AI on because of people who felt writers who could afford to pay weren’t. God knows if I could, I would. It would allot me more time for my writing. That I would love. I paid someone to do a trailer for a website sale I had before Christmas. Guess what, it didn't generate any sales, because people are desensitized to the process. That’s money I won’t have toward something else.

      I like complex, photogenic covers for my books, but unless I do them myself, it will not happen. I am not a well-known, nor am I well to do. I can probably count sales I've made over the 10-15 years on my hands and feet. Not because I can't write, as those that read the first editions gave me five stars in reviews. People wanted me to do more. I have written plays that have brought an audience to tears. I give my writing my all, I just can’t draw, so I use a tool to do it, and I reiterate, as I said this weekend, I do not use AI to write my book.

I admit, I use editing programs that have AI within them to help with my personal edits. So do you if you have Word and use copilot, ProWritingAid, Word’s original editor. It’s all AI. Indie authors have many obstacles that traditional people do not, let’s not make them each other.