The Cover Pic

Jul 14

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How do you go about finding a good cover pic for your ebook? I’ve spent many hours trawling through photos and vectors on the so-called royalty-free websites. I’d rather have spent the time editing or tweeting or blogging.

To complicate it further, royalty-free isn’t the same as free. On most of these websites, you still have to buy your preferred pic and agree to observe fairly stringent terms of licence. I eventually found a few websites that allow you to use their photos free, even for commercial use, but you have to seek the written approval of the photographer and give him/her a credit in your ebook.

Now that I’ve settled on one that’s right for The Girl with the Julia Roberts Smile – you guessed right, it’s classy but not cheesy (in the shrewd words of my daughter, who helped me pick it) and doesn’t look too like Julia – the next problem is that I can’t get a reply from the photographer and the website makes it clear that I’m on my own.

Ah, if only I could draw!

About Richard Louden

Maybe it was because languages were my thing but I loved writing at school and I've loved it ever since. Obviously, I hope others will enjoy reading what I write but, now that I am turning my hand to novels, what matters most to me is to write what, as a reader, I would like to read. As a journalist with UK papers, I've written widely on education, business, sport and law. In the creative writing field, I've written the scripts of two TV dramas (BBC and ITV), contributed sketches to TV and radio comedy shows and had short stories published in national anthologies. That doesn’t make me a novelist but I hope it gives me a push in the right direction.

Posted on July 14, 2012, in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. 5 Comments.

  1. Harold Lawson | July 14, 2012 at 4:44 pm

    Wish I could help Richard unless you’d be ok with a picture of a Scottish Island or a golf course ?

    Reply
  2. craigt111 | July 21, 2012 at 4:48 pm

    Frankly, Richard… I’d recommend hiring a cover design artist $150 to $500 (US… that’s redundant, isn’t it?). And you have the right to send it back to the drawing board for a redo or two. Free? No matter how good one thinks it looks, one still usually gets that for which one pays :-{ ) Seriously, cover is EVERYTHING and readers DO judge a book by its cover. No kidding. Best wishes for tremendous success with your first novel. COT

    Reply
  3. Marella Oppenheim | August 5, 2012 at 7:34 pm

    There is a company named BookBaby I believe that has a cover design service incl in their fee for selfpublished authors in Print and I suppose that goes for ebooks as well….not sure of the costs but you might like to look into it.

    Other wise, hoe about approaching a new post-grad design student from one of the top universities that run Publishing Masters degrees such as Kingston or UEA…they might have a list of new talent out to fill their CVs.

    just ideas.

    best wishes

    Reply

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