Continue an existing book

Reopen a book#

Open the Dashboard, select My Books, and choose a book — each book stands on the shelf as its newest favorited cover, or its latest cover if you have no favorite, and selecting it opens the same cover workspace. Books in a series are on the Series tab, not on My Books.

The Cover Expert panel on the right of that workspace creates new versions inside the existing project, so all concepts remain together. Select Collapse to give the grid the full width, and Open the Cover Expert to bring the panel back.

Create and Chat#

On Basic, Pro and Enterprise, the Cover Expert panel has two tabs: Create and Chat. The panel remembers the last tab you used in this browser. Free accounts see one Cover Expert chat with no tabs.

Create#

Use Create when you know what you want and do not need a conversation. It has two modes.

Style & parameters builds the cover from your saved book details:

1. Style — leave it on Auto and BeYourCover's art director designs new covers for your genre and summary, the same way it designs a new book's first covers. Or select it to open the style picker. The picker has All styles and Used in this book tabs, genre chips, and a search box. The styles that suit your book best come first in All styles, marked Best match.
2. Notes (optional) — a short extra instruction, such as "a stormy sky" or "the title at the top". The art director follows it.
3. Covers — choose 1 to 4.
4. Select Generate N covers. The button shows the credit cost.

The art director knows what your earlier covers show, so new covers look for a different central image instead of repeating the same object. To get that object again, ask for it in the notes.

With a style picked, some of the covers come from the art director, and the rest from the style's own template. The art director keeps the style's layout, palette, type and main image, and takes the story details from your book. Keep the ones you like best: what authors keep tells us which way serves each style better. A style no longer has separate palette, type and motif settings; describe what you want in the notes or in Chat.

Your prompt renders your text exactly as written, with no style, template or rewrite. Use it when you need exact control over the scene, layout, typography or colours. Your prompt must name the title, subtitle and author if you want them on the cover.

Basic accounts can pick the free styles. Pro and Enterprise accounts can pick every style.

In the style picker, Best match marks up to six styles: the ones that suit your book best.

Chat#

Chat is a conversation with the Cover Expert. Your covers stay visible in the grid beside it.

A new chat offers starters: Analyze my cover and propose new approaches, Does it signal my genre? and Check how it reads as a thumbnail. Paid accounts also get Generate 2 new versions (2 credits).

• Describe what you want. The expert asks questions, offers directions, and proposes complete covers or small localized edits. When you generate a proposal, the expert hands your change to BeYourCover's art director, which redesigns the current cover with that change and keeps the rest. With a style picked, the new version takes that style's layout, palette, type and main image, and keeps your change and the story details.
• Directions are checkboxes: Pick one or more directions, then generate them. Each picked direction becomes a new cover that the art director designs from scratch, not a change to the cover on screen. On Pro, the picked directions render at the same time. On Basic and Enterprise, they render one after another. A free account picks one direction only: Pick a direction, then Generate this version.
• Select Chat about this cover on any card, use Add cover, or type @ to bring up to three covers into the conversation. They show as "Talking about" chips above the message box. No cover is attached until you add one.
• Select Style in the message box to make new versions in a specific style, or leave it on Auto.
• Chatting is free. Each render costs one credit: Generate this version · 1 credit for a new cover, Apply edit · 1 credit for an edit. A proposal marked "Renders exactly as written" uses your own prompt with no style or template.
• You can keep chatting while a cover renders. New covers appear in the grid. Select Show in grid on a proposal to scroll to its cover.
• When the expert recommends another tool, such as the text editor, typography restyle, style conversion, text removal, upscale or the full print wrap, the card has a button that opens that tool for the current cover. For an audiobook version, the card makes it in place: Create audiobook cover · 1 credit.
• When you ask for new directions, the expert offers ideas it has not suggested before in that conversation.
• The conversation is saved per book. If a save fails, the panel shows Not saved yet and keeps retrying. Keep the tab open until the note goes away. Use New chat to start over.

Free accounts can chat 20 messages per book. A free account's render is a free preview: see Free previews below.

On a phone, the New cover button opens the Cover Expert full screen.

Free previews#

On a free account, Generate this version in the chat makes a free preview. The cover appears in the grid blurred, as Version N · Free preview. You get one free preview per book.

Select Unlock Version N to upgrade. After you upgrade, the preview renders sharp for one credit.

Credits for a generation#

The credits for the covers leave your balance when the generation starts. A cover that fails gives its credit back, so you pay only for the covers you get. If you start several generations at once — several chat directions, or a second browser tab — each one needs its own credits. A generation that finds the balance already used stops before it renders and shows the out-of-credits message.

Generate more like a cover#

Open a card's More menu and choose More like this to create a close variation of that concept. This is useful after you find a strong composition and want to explore nearby alternatives instead of starting over.

The new version is added to the same book project and uses one credit. If the generation fails, that credit is returned.

Generate from a reference in an existing project#

References are available on Pro and Enterprise. On Free and Basic, the paperclip opens the upgrade window.

1. In the Chat tab, select the paperclip (Attach a reference image).
2. Upload the reference: one image at a time, JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 5 MB, between 256 and 4096 pixels on each side.
3. Describe what should change or stay consistent.
4. Generate the version the expert proposes.

BeYourCover studies your reference's art style, composition, colors, lighting, and typography, then generates a brand-new cover in that direction with your own title and author text. The result is a style-inspired recreation — not an edit of the reference image itself — so exact faces, objects, or pixel details from the reference won't be copied over. Reference generation uses one image credit. If the run fails, the credit is returned.

Edit a cover to match a reference#

While the reference stays attached, an edit the expert proposes also uses it. Ask for one change, such as "make the ox look like the one in my reference", and apply the edit. The edit model sees your cover and the reference together. It redraws only the part you named to match the reference, in your cover's own art style, and keeps the rest of the cover and its text. An edit uses one image credit. If it fails, the credit is returned. Remove the reference before an edit that should not use it.

Edit the saved book details#

Open Edit book details → Book details to update (on a phone, open Edit):

• Title
• Author or byline
• Genre and subgenre
• Planner year
• Subtitle or tagline
• Summary

Saved changes are used by future generations and text layouts. Use this for a new title version or a stronger summary. For a completely different book, create a new project.

A book can have a genre that the genre buttons do not list, such as Young Adult, Poetry, Mystery, or general Non-Fiction. It then shows as its own button, already selected, so saving keeps it. Young Adult books also offer a shelf: Contemporary, Fantasy, Romance, Dystopian, Sci-Fi, Thriller, or Horror. If you leave the subgenre empty, BeYourCover picks one from your summary at the next generation.

Saving book-detail changes is a Pro feature.

Edit cover parameters#

Every project can show Edit book details → Cover parameters. The exact fields vary by genre.

Fiction parameters can include point of view, heat level, setting, pairing, figure count, tones, tropes, characters, and visual metaphors. Nonfiction parameters can include book mode, whether there is an iconic object, and whether a portrait or anonymous figure belongs on the cover. Biography & Memoir and Cookbooks & Food also show characters, so you can set the appearance of the memoir's subject or of the cook.

You can:

• Replace an extracted value.
• Reset an edited field to the extracted value.
• Add or remove characters.
• Add, edit, type, or remove metaphors.
• Save a tagline that is separate from the subtitle.

Select Re-extract from blurb to read your summary again and replace the extracted values. Your manual edits stay.

Re-extracting and saving cover parameters are Pro features. On Free and Basic, Save Parameters shows a Pro badge, and both buttons open the upgrade screen.

These parameters influence future covers made with a style. They do not rewrite covers that already exist.

Generation locks and concurrency#

Most accounts run one AI operation at a time. While an edit or generation is active, other credit-consuming actions are temporarily disabled. One exception: on Pro, directions you pick together in the chat render at the same time. Enterprise plans can have a higher concurrent-generation limit.

Wait for the current job to finish before starting another action unless your enterprise workspace explicitly allows it.