6 ms·

I'm sorry to be a little rude, but the AI-generated cover (the left crab is missing an eye, for starters) is a negative quality indicator. If you weren't willin

I'm sorry to be a little rude, but the AI-generated cover (the left crab is missing an eye, for starters) is a negative quality indicator. If you weren't willing to take the time to put together a thoughtful cover, why should readers expect the book's content to be assembled any more carefully?

0x696C6961 2y ago
I love how the top comment is a guy literally judging a book by it's cover.
- nkrisc 2y ago
  It is pretty amusing, but I actually have to agree. Unless your book is about generative AI, using it for the cover makes me question the effort put into the rest of the book - which is really unfortunate if the author did in fact put a lot of effort into their book! Yes, don’t judge a book by its cover - but lots of people do anyway.
  - 0x696C6961 2y ago
    Oh please. Don't pretend like this has anything to do with "effort". If the book cover was some generic stock image you wouldn't even blink.
    - nkrisc 2y ago
      If it was a particularly bad stock image, I would. The only reason I even noticed here is because the image is bizarre and uncanny if you look at it for even a moment. If the AI produced something indistinguishable from a good stock photo, then no, I would probably not have noticed. But it didn’t, and they still put it on top of their hard work. If the AI image sucks, don’t use it!
  - thanksgiving 2y ago
    Don't judge a book by the cover is an advice for us, the readers. It is NOT an advice for the writers or the marketing department. a tasteful public domain image of a crab or something like hundreds of years old but then detailed enough kind of like one of those O'Reilly's books and then make the whole cover white with some text that stands out... It has all been done before and I anal but I doubt O'Reilly's can copyright or trademark that design feeling. Edit: unless the authors are trying to crowd source the proof reading and peer review by releasing an early access copy? This cover draws attention from the average reader who is drawn to comment about the book because there is something to criticize? Maybe this is some kind of advanced 3D chess?
    - _mlbt 2y ago
      I don’t think that making your book’s cover look indistinguishable from a significant number of other books in the same category is good marketing advice.
      - tialaramex 2y ago
        Who said "indistinguishable" ? Choosing to make your book "fit" is often a good call. You're actually going to attract people who know roughly what they want. My mother reads a lot of trash romance, it's not very important who wrote it, but a handsome guy on the cover signals that this is roughly the right book, the attire and surroundings are a vague gesture at the sub-genre, guy in a white coat? Medical. Business suit? Maybe 1980s. There's no rule against refusing to obey convention, "Twenty Jazz Funk Greats" is, in fact, not Jazz-funk, and indeed didn't have twenty tracks. But nobody working on that album thought "This is a commercial route to success". It's art. Really difficult to listen to art. If you are not making art but have some other purpose you probably do want to signal your intent to people merely browsing.
        codetrotter 2y ago
        You could even take the "public domain image" idea and still make something that looks nothing like an O'Reilly book. For example, here are some images from Library of Congress with crabs in them that I think could make for interesting book covers: - https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsa.8a23704/ https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsa.8a23704/ "Residents of Raceland, Louisiana, eating crabs at crab boil" (1938 Sept.) - https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/jpd.00748/ https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/jpd.00748/ "Benkeigani to tsubaki" (between 1825 and 1830) - https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/ppmsca.69838/ https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/ppmsca.69838/ "Frozen crabs at a restaurant" (January 1954) - https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/highsm.14204/ https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/highsm.14204/ "The Barking Crab restaurant on the Fan Pier across the Northern Bridge from downtown Boston, Massachusetts" (between 1980 and 2006) - https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/ds.00242/ https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/ds.00242/ "Cancer" (latin name for crab, you'll probably want to edit the image to avoid any unfortunate connotations) (1825) But before picking any of these or other images from the Library of Congress, check the "about this item" link and see in particular the "Rights Advisory", including any links to further details about rights and usage in that field, and keep also in mind things like what is pointed out in one of those links; "Privacy and publicity rights may also apply". IANAL, TINLA.
  - _mlbt 2y ago
    I disagree, this is actually a great use case for generative AI. There are many people who are great at writing, coding, hacking, or other talents, but are terrible artists. I know that I fall into this category, and I’m very excited about the prospect of using AI for any graphical assets I need for my projects. Especially with an ebook, if the content is good, I frankly don’t even care if it even has a cover at all.
    - fatbird 2y ago
      I understand, but you should understand that OP's response will be common to your use of AI graphics: it'll be an indicator of little thought or quality control put into it.
      - _mlbt 2y ago
        As an independent developer or author, every bit of time or money put into superficial things like a book cover is time or money that isn’t used for the content itself.
        otde 2y ago
        which begs the question: why spend any time at all including an ai image as part of the cover if it’s a negative signal for some people?
        wk_end 2y ago
        A comment like this makes a lot of subtle assumptions. That there's a fixed budget of time/money - exactly X hours/dollars will be allocated to the book, one way or another. That the improvement to the quality of the content as time/money is invested is something approaching linear - that if exactly X hours/dollars are going to be allocated to the book, the content will be appreciably better if, say, 0.9X is allocated to the content vs, say, 0.8X. That time and money is fungible: that all time/money that could be invested in the content could be invested in superficial things, and the other way around.
        2y ago
  - thayne 2y ago
    It also might be a sign that the content of the book is itself AI generated.
- chowells 2y ago
  A book's cover is a strong signal of its content and quality. You absolutely should judge books by their covers. This isn't an accident. Publishers put a lot of effort into ensuring covers send accurate signals about the contents of the book. A book with a garbage cover didn't come through the modern publishing process, and it didn't get made by someone who cares enough about their book to put actual effort into the cover. The percentage of books that will be worthwhile with a bad cover is vanishingly small. To a first approximation, it's 0%. It's very reasonable to judge a book by its cover these days. It's an intentional signal; covers aren't chosen at random. If you intend your book to be taken seriously, you need to keep up with modern standards.
  - bitfix 2y ago
    No serious readers judge a book by the cover.
    - chowells 2y ago
      That's absolutely false, but thanks for contributing.
- mhh__ 2y ago
  Judging books by their covers is underrated. In sociology most of the results that actually replicate are the ones that are true but people wish they weren't.
vunderba 2y ago
Agreed. Whatever you might think of GenAI, using it poorly speaks to a fundamental lack of attention to detail. Even worse, it makes me question the content itself. If they used Stable Diffusion for the cover image, who's to say they didn't also use an LLM to generate some of the Rust examples in the book itself? Note: I'm not suggesting that the inherent usage of an LLM to generate Rust code is necessarily bad. What I am suggesting is that they might approach the review of said generated code with the same laissez-faire attitude as they did with the cover image.
FrustratedMonky 2y ago
Are we sure that the crab missing the left-eye wasn't on purpose? Some meme about bugs or something. It seem to also be missing left legs, as if it was damaged. The book seems focused on errors and error handling, maybe a 'bug' on the cover was on purpose. Not so sure this is just AI artifact.
- vunderba 2y ago
  It is 100% a badly generated AI image. The random partial keyboards are a dead giveaway along with the smeared looking green text on the monitor.
  - bitfix 2y ago
    who cares?
    - FrustratedMonky 2y ago
      apparently a lot of commenters care. a huge amount of the comments on the book were critical just because of the cover.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

0x696C6961 2y ago

I love how the top comment is a guy literally judging a book by it's cover.

nkrisc 2y ago
It is pretty amusing, but I actually have to agree. Unless your book is about generative AI, using it for the cover makes me question the effort put into the rest of the book - which is really unfortunate if the author did in fact put a lot of effort into their book! Yes, don’t judge a book by its cover - but lots of people do anyway.
- 0x696C6961 2y ago
  Oh please. Don't pretend like this has anything to do with "effort". If the book cover was some generic stock image you wouldn't even blink.
  - nkrisc 2y ago
    If it was a particularly bad stock image, I would. The only reason I even noticed here is because the image is bizarre and uncanny if you look at it for even a moment. If the AI produced something indistinguishable from a good stock photo, then no, I would probably not have noticed. But it didn’t, and they still put it on top of their hard work. If the AI image sucks, don’t use it!
- thanksgiving 2y ago
  Don't judge a book by the cover is an advice for us, the readers. It is NOT an advice for the writers or the marketing department. a tasteful public domain image of a crab or something like hundreds of years old but then detailed enough kind of like one of those O'Reilly's books and then make the whole cover white with some text that stands out... It has all been done before and I anal but I doubt O'Reilly's can copyright or trademark that design feeling. Edit: unless the authors are trying to crowd source the proof reading and peer review by releasing an early access copy? This cover draws attention from the average reader who is drawn to comment about the book because there is something to criticize? Maybe this is some kind of advanced 3D chess?
  - _mlbt 2y ago
    I don’t think that making your book’s cover look indistinguishable from a significant number of other books in the same category is good marketing advice.
    - tialaramex 2y ago
      Who said "indistinguishable" ? Choosing to make your book "fit" is often a good call. You're actually going to attract people who know roughly what they want. My mother reads a lot of trash romance, it's not very important who wrote it, but a handsome guy on the cover signals that this is roughly the right book, the attire and surroundings are a vague gesture at the sub-genre, guy in a white coat? Medical. Business suit? Maybe 1980s. There's no rule against refusing to obey convention, "Twenty Jazz Funk Greats" is, in fact, not Jazz-funk, and indeed didn't have twenty tracks. But nobody working on that album thought "This is a commercial route to success". It's art. Really difficult to listen to art. If you are not making art but have some other purpose you probably do want to signal your intent to people merely browsing.
      - codetrotter 2y ago
        You could even take the "public domain image" idea and still make something that looks nothing like an O'Reilly book. For example, here are some images from Library of Congress with crabs in them that I think could make for interesting book covers: - https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsa.8a23704/ https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsa.8a23704/ "Residents of Raceland, Louisiana, eating crabs at crab boil" (1938 Sept.) - https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/jpd.00748/ https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/jpd.00748/ "Benkeigani to tsubaki" (between 1825 and 1830) - https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/ppmsca.69838/ https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/ppmsca.69838/ "Frozen crabs at a restaurant" (January 1954) - https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/highsm.14204/ https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/highsm.14204/ "The Barking Crab restaurant on the Fan Pier across the Northern Bridge from downtown Boston, Massachusetts" (between 1980 and 2006) - https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/ds.00242/ https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/ds.00242/ "Cancer" (latin name for crab, you'll probably want to edit the image to avoid any unfortunate connotations) (1825) But before picking any of these or other images from the Library of Congress, check the "about this item" link and see in particular the "Rights Advisory", including any links to further details about rights and usage in that field, and keep also in mind things like what is pointed out in one of those links; "Privacy and publicity rights may also apply". IANAL, TINLA.
- _mlbt 2y ago
  I disagree, this is actually a great use case for generative AI. There are many people who are great at writing, coding, hacking, or other talents, but are terrible artists. I know that I fall into this category, and I’m very excited about the prospect of using AI for any graphical assets I need for my projects. Especially with an ebook, if the content is good, I frankly don’t even care if it even has a cover at all.
  - fatbird 2y ago
    I understand, but you should understand that OP's response will be common to your use of AI graphics: it'll be an indicator of little thought or quality control put into it.
    - _mlbt 2y ago
      As an independent developer or author, every bit of time or money put into superficial things like a book cover is time or money that isn’t used for the content itself.
      - otde 2y ago
        which begs the question: why spend any time at all including an ai image as part of the cover if it’s a negative signal for some people?
      - wk_end 2y ago
        A comment like this makes a lot of subtle assumptions. That there's a fixed budget of time/money - exactly X hours/dollars will be allocated to the book, one way or another. That the improvement to the quality of the content as time/money is invested is something approaching linear - that if exactly X hours/dollars are going to be allocated to the book, the content will be appreciably better if, say, 0.9X is allocated to the content vs, say, 0.8X. That time and money is fungible: that all time/money that could be invested in the content could be invested in superficial things, and the other way around.
        2y ago
- thayne 2y ago
  It also might be a sign that the content of the book is itself AI generated.
chowells 2y ago
A book's cover is a strong signal of its content and quality. You absolutely should judge books by their covers. This isn't an accident. Publishers put a lot of effort into ensuring covers send accurate signals about the contents of the book. A book with a garbage cover didn't come through the modern publishing process, and it didn't get made by someone who cares enough about their book to put actual effort into the cover. The percentage of books that will be worthwhile with a bad cover is vanishingly small. To a first approximation, it's 0%. It's very reasonable to judge a book by its cover these days. It's an intentional signal; covers aren't chosen at random. If you intend your book to be taken seriously, you need to keep up with modern standards.
- bitfix 2y ago
  No serious readers judge a book by the cover.
  - chowells 2y ago
    That's absolutely false, but thanks for contributing.
mhh__ 2y ago
Judging books by their covers is underrated. In sociology most of the results that actually replicate are the ones that are true but people wish they weren't.

vunderba 2y ago

Agreed. Whatever you might think of GenAI, using it poorly speaks to a fundamental lack of attention to detail. Even worse, it makes me question the content itself. If they used Stable Diffusion for the cover image, who's to say they didn't also use an LLM to generate some of the Rust examples in the book itself? Note: I'm not suggesting that the inherent usage of an LLM to generate Rust code is necessarily bad. What I am suggesting is that they might approach the review of said generated code with the same laissez-faire attitude as they did with the cover image.

FrustratedMonky 2y ago

Are we sure that the crab missing the left-eye wasn't on purpose? Some meme about bugs or something. It seem to also be missing left legs, as if it was damaged. The book seems focused on errors and error handling, maybe a 'bug' on the cover was on purpose. Not so sure this is just AI artifact.

vunderba 2y ago
It is 100% a badly generated AI image. The random partial keyboards are a dead giveaway along with the smeared looking green text on the monitor.
- bitfix 2y ago
  who cares?
  - FrustratedMonky 2y ago
    apparently a lot of commenters care. a huge amount of the comments on the book were critical just because of the cover.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]