Interview: How AI Is Changing Book Cover Design, with Howard Lovy and Pablo Yáñez

On the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, host Howard Lovy talks to Pablo Yáñez, founder of BeYourCover, about how artificial intelligence is changing book cover design. A professional book cover photographer for more than fifteen years before building AI tools, Yáñez explains where AI can help authors create marketable covers, where it still falls short, and why genre conventions matter more than many writers realize. He also discusses the ethics of AI, the continuing value of human designers, and how authors can decide which approach is right for their books. Find more author advice, tips, and tools at our Self-publishing Author Advice Center, with a huge archive of 2,000+ blog posts, and a handy search box to find key info on the topic you need. We invite you to join our organization and become a self-publishing ally. Further Reading The Alliance of Independent Authors' AI Policy ALLi also has a sample template AI policy for members to use on their websites, which can be downloaded in the member zone. About the Host Howard Lovy is an author, developmental editor, and writing coach with a long career in journalism and publishing. He works with writers at many stages of their careers, with a focus on helping them develop their ideas and strengthen their work while preserving their unique voices. He lives in Northern Michigan. About the Guest Pablo Yáñez spent fifteen years as a photographer, many of them shooting book covers for authors and publishers, before founding BeYourCover, an AI book cover generator built for indie authors. Frustrated by generic AI output that ignores how covers actually work, he developed BeYourCover's AI book cover generator, a tool that respects genre conventions, survives the thumbnail test, and produces print-ready files—with the author directing the design rather than rolling the dice on a prompt. He works from Madrid, where he also shoots street photography. Learn more at BeYourCover or contact Pablo.