Prompt library · Book covers
Ten tested prompts for cover artwork by genre — thriller, literary fiction, cozy mystery, space opera, self-help — each composed with clear space for typography you set yourself. Unedited outputs, model and price on every card.
Generate the artwork, not the finished cover. Ask a model for “a book cover with the title Silent Harbour” and you'll get a plausible-looking jacket with broken lettering — a doubled letter, a phantom serif, spacing that no designer would ship. Instead, prompt for the image and reserve the space: “Moody literary cover artwork of a lone rowing boat on a flat grey lake at dawn, mist on the water, muted palette, large empty sky in the upper third for typography, no text or lettering”. Then set the title in a real font over it.
Genre is the other half of the prompt, and it's a design language rather than a subject. Thrillers are high-contrast, cold, off-centre, with one blood-warm accent. Literary fiction is quiet, textured, symbolic, often a single object. Romance is bright, high-key and rounded. Sci-fi is scale and silhouette. Say the genre and the treatment out loud — “contemporary thriller cover art, high contrast, cold palette, single warm accent” — and the composition falls into place. All ten below are unedited first outputs generated on BananaBanana.
Print covers are usually around 2:3 — a 6×9 inch trade paperback is exactly that — and ebook stores are close enough that the same file works. The prompts here are generated at 3:4, which is the nearest ratio the models offer, and then cropped to the exact trim in a layout tool. Because of that, ask for a little breathing room at the edges: art composed tight to the frame loses its subject when you crop to 2:3 and add a spine bleed.
Composition matters more than resolution at thumbnail size. A cover is first seen 150 pixels tall in a store grid, so the test is whether the image still reads at that size. One strong silhouette, one dominant colour, and a clear empty band for the title survives thumbnailing; a detailed illustrated scene turns into visual noise. Generate at 2K when you go to print, and check every candidate scaled down before you commit.
Every image below is the unedited output of the prompt on its card — no cherry-picking across dozens of attempts, no retouching. The model badge shows exactly what generated it and what it cost.
Contemporary thriller cover artwork: a single small rowing boat adrift on a flat, glassy grey lake at dawn, heavy mist swallowing the far shore, one thin band of cold orange on the horizon. High contrast, desaturated palette of slate, charcoal and one warm accent. Large empty sky occupying the upper third for typography. Cinematic, ominous, no text or lettering.
Quiet literary fiction cover artwork: a single wooden chair standing in an empty room with a bare floorboard and a slanted rectangle of afternoon light falling across it. Muted palette of dust, ochre and pale blue, visible paper grain and painterly texture, generous empty wall space above the chair for typography. Restrained and symbolic, no text or lettering.
Space opera cover artwork: an enormous ringed planet filling the lower half of the frame, a tiny silhouetted ship crossing in front of it leaving a thin ion trail, star field and faint nebula above. Deep indigo and violet palette with one cyan accent, strong silhouette that reads at thumbnail size, clear dark sky in the upper third for typography. Epic scale, no text or lettering.
Cozy mystery cover illustration: a narrow cobbled village lane with crooked shopfronts, window boxes of flowers, a bicycle leaning against a wall and a black cat sitting in a doorway. Warm inviting palette of butter yellow, sage and dusty rose, flat charming illustration style with clean shapes. Sky and rooftops left open at the top for typography, no signage, no text or lettering.
Contemporary romance cover illustration: two figures seen from behind at a distance, walking apart along a sunlit shoreline, their long shadows almost touching. Bright high-key palette of coral, cream and sky blue, soft flat illustration with rounded shapes and simple faceless figures. Wide empty sky in the upper half for typography, optimistic and warm, no text or lettering.
Historical fiction cover artwork: a tall wooden sailing ship at anchor in a misty harbour at first light, rigging silhouetted against a pale sky, small figures on the quay in period coats. Painterly oil-on-canvas texture, muted palette of sea green, sand and warm grey. Sky open across the top third for typography, atmospheric and evocative, no text or lettering.
Modern non-fiction cover artwork: a clean abstract composition of connected circles and lines forming an ordered network across the lower two-thirds, one node highlighted in a bright accent. Flat vector style, generous negative space, limited palette of deep navy, off-white and one signal orange. Whole upper third left empty for typography, confident and intellectual, no text or lettering.
Psychological horror cover artwork: a long empty corridor of an old building receding into darkness, peeling wallpaper, a single bare bulb throwing a weak cone of light halfway down, one door ajar with blackness behind it. Nearly monochrome palette of sickly green-grey with deep crushed blacks, heavy vignette, film grain. Dark ceiling space at the top for typography, no text or lettering.
Memoir cover artwork: a person seen from behind, silhouetted at a rain-streaked window, one hand resting on the glass, warm interior lamplight behind them and a blurred city beyond. Painterly and intimate, muted palette of amber, deep blue and grey, face not visible. Clear darker area across the top for typography, reflective and personal, no text or lettering.
Children's picture book cover illustration: a small fox and an owl sitting together on a mossy log in a friendly stylised forest, oversized mushrooms and round trees, fireflies drifting in the air. Warm storybook palette of moss green, pumpkin and cream, soft gouache texture, gentle rounded shapes. Open sky at the top for typography, cheerful and welcoming, no text or lettering.
“Large empty sky in the upper third for typography” makes the model compose around the title instead of filling every pixel. It's the difference between artwork you can design on and artwork you have to fight.
Generated lettering comes back subtly wrong almost every time, and on a cover that's fatal. Set type in a real font over the art — you get proper kerning, and changing the subtitle is a five-second edit rather than a re-generation.
“High contrast, cold palette, one warm accent, off-centre subject” is what makes a thriller look like a thriller. Genre isn't a subject, it's a treatment — say the treatment.
Scale every candidate down to 150 pixels tall before choosing. One silhouette and one dominant colour survives; a busy illustrated scene turns to mud in a store grid.
10 promptsTen tested prompts for epic scenes — dragons over storm-lit peaks, floating cities, ruined libraries swallowed by roots. Every card shows the unedited artwork, the model behind it and the price.
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10 promptsTen tested prompts spanning the genre — neon cyberpunk, hand-painted 90s film stills, mecha, magical girls, cozy slice-of-life and city pop. Each card shows the unedited result and the model behind it.
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10 promptsTen tested prompts for wearable graphics — vintage sun badges, monoline botanicals, bold streetwear illustration — all generated as isolated art on a flat background, ready to cut out and drop onto a garment.
Browse promptsThe scene-first structure used in every cover prompt here.
Read the guideWhere the top model earns its price — and where it doesn't.
Read the guideCover concepts for cents, without a monthly plan.
Read the guideYes — you own the images you generate on BananaBanana, and AI cover art is widely used in self-publishing. Amazon KDP and most other platforms require you to disclose AI-generated content during upload, so answer that question honestly; it doesn't block publication.
Generate at 2K on Nano Banana 2 or Pro for print. A 6×9 inch cover at 300 dpi is 1800×2700 pixels, so 2K output gives you enough to crop to trim and add bleed. Lite's 1K is fine for ebook-only covers and for testing concepts.
In any layout tool — Affinity Publisher, InDesign, Canva, even Figma. Place the generated art as the background, set the title in the empty band the prompt reserved, and export as PDF or a flattened image at the platform's required size.
Not reliably in one generation — the model doesn't understand a spine as a structural element. Generate the front art, then extend it sideways in an edit pass or build the wrap in your layout tool, keeping the back cover mostly flat colour so the blurb stays readable.
It will if you prompt like everyone else. Genre conventions are a starting point, not a destination — pick an unusual object, an unexpected palette, or an odd crop and keep the genre's contrast and composition rules. The prompts here are written as templates for exactly that kind of substitution.
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