Bowen's Hollow Novel
I self-published my first novel in July 2025 and one of my favorite parts of the whole process has been designing stuff to promote it. I worked on everything from the cover art to the book layout to the social media campaigns. Below is a look at some of the work.
Book Design & Bowen’s Hollow Logo
Creative Process and Generative AI
AI is a controversial topic, and one that I’ve deliberated on at length. My perspective is that generative AI platforms like MidJourney and Leonardo are tools to be used in conjunction with existing skill sets. The artwork I created for the book and for much of the promotion afterwards utilizes AI image and video generation in some capacity. It’s an ongoing process, but I wanted to demonstrate how I use AI to get the artwork exactly as I envision by showing how I created the cover art for the book.
Book Cover & Hero Art
My process started in Illustrator. Without spoiling the story, a key scene in the novel includes an old blue pickup truck with blood stains stamped on the driver side door, and these were the first illustrations I created for the project.
Original truck illustration
AI generated truck image created using content reference
The cover of the Advanced Readers Edition of the book featured the original illustration on the top left. Once the book was completed, I was able to dedicate more time and attention to the books artwork, and it was then that I decided to incorporate some AI. I also wanted to include more than just the truck, and decided that the house the main character grew up in would be an interesting thing to explore. I again popped into illustrator to draw out what the house looked like based on my descriptions of it in the novel.
Once I was happy with my illustrations, I imported it into Leonardo.AI to guide my image generations. I generated the truck and the house independently and created the composition in Photoshop. Small details like the waves rolling up on the beach at the bottom of the image were added in Photoshop as well, I spend about two weeks generating and composing to get to the final result. It’s one that would not have been possible without AI.
Local’s Coffee Shop
I repeated this process to create some complimentary artwork for my socials to promote the project as well.
A photo I took of the front of Northport Sweet Shop (Main Street Northport Village)
An illustration of Local’s Coffee Shop I drew based off of the photo I took
Image of Locals created using a combination of my illustration, Leonardo’s content reference feature, and Photoshop
Promotional Videos
Below are some promotional videos for the project. Same as above, in many cases I used a combination of my own illustrations and / or photography to direct the AI.
Your Next Summer Read is Here
Inspired by Long Island Towns
Huntington, Prime Restaurant
(Video also created at 1x1, 4x5 and 9x16 aspect ratios for various social placements)
Northport Village, Northport Sweet Shop
(Video also created at 1x1 and 9x16 aspect ratios for various social placements)
Book Excerpts
Launch Announcements, Etc.
Springfield College
