Today’s topic comes from QSFer Hank T. Cannon:
One question that has been burning at me. Where do the sexy pictures for the book covers come from? How are they licensed?
It’s a great question. I’ve just started playing around with covers myself, and got some good advice from a cover “panel” at Rainbow Con – there are a number of sites that sell stock art, and the licenses for each site (and often for each piece of art) can vary, so you need to check these when you buy.
I just put together three covers for some serial free stories I’ll be releasing on my blog, and the biggest difficulty for me was sorting through all the available photos to find what I wanted. But you also have to pay attention to the size/resolution of the art for what you are doing.
I know we have folks on here who are a lot more experienced at this stuff than I am, so here are my questions for you: Where do you get your cover art? What’s your process for finding the “right” image? What are the potential pitfalls to purchasing art? And does anyone commission their own photos from local artists or photographers?
Come join the discussion. :)