# Sources for cover art



## Benjamin Clayborne (Jan 4, 2012)

In a nutshell: Are there good, inexpensive (or, ideally, royalty-free) sources of art that one can use for "cover art" for e-book publishing?

I've got a few short stories I've worked on. A few of them, I think, are good enough to publish, or close to it. I've mostly been putting my efforts these last months into my novel (and, well, a few challenges ;-)) but I'm thinking about the idea of posting a few short stories on Amazon, just to start having a presence in the marketplace and (at least a little) to get some practice publishing through KDP and learning the ropes there.

To that end, it makes sense that even a short story sold on Amazon for $0.99 should still have cover art; this I decided when I went and checked out *Kevin McLaughlin's offerings on Amazon*, and noticed that "The Font of Forgiveness" had some nice cover art, even for a $0.99 short story. I assumed (forgive me if this is incorrect, Mr. McLaughlin) that he found existing art and designed his own art.


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## Telcontar (Jan 4, 2012)

Been doing the Googling for this for awhile, and basically this blog post has everything you need to get started. Links to other discussion threads, as well as links to free image repositories. Best of luck!

Myself, I keep trying to hand-draw something in GIMP that's acceptable. Might have to fall back on using stock imagery type stuff, cuz... I'm just not up to my own standards.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Jan 5, 2012)

Telcontar said:


> Been doing the Googling for this for awhile, and basically this blog post has everything you need to get started. Links to other discussion threads, as well as links to free image repositories. Best of luck!
> 
> Myself, I keep trying to hand-draw something in GIMP that's acceptable. Might have to fall back on using stock imagery type stuff, cuz... I'm just not up to my own standards.



Thanks! Definitely looks like a good place to start.


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## MichaelSullivan (Jan 7, 2012)

Keep in mind that somethimes simple is better than complicated. My the Viscount and the Witch cover is basially "just text" (there is a dagger in there but not that important. 

Some expample covers that are "simple".

http://www.amazon.com/The-Emperors-...DB0/ref=pd_sim_kinc_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2
http://www.amazon.com/Viscount-Witc...IHR8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325952151&sr=8-1
Amazon.com: Brother Thief (Song of the Aura, Book One) eBook: Gregory J. Downs: Kindle Store


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## Devor (Jan 7, 2012)

MichaelSullivan said:


> Keep in mind that somethimes simple is better than complicated. My the Viscount and the Witch cover is basially "just text" (there is a dagger in there but not that important.
> 
> Some expample covers that are "simple".
> 
> ...



All three of those may have taken only a few hours of graphic manipulation and a little bit of back-and-forth with the artist, but they all show rather a lot of skill.  You also need rights on the dagger.  Can I ask, how much would something like that cost?


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Jan 7, 2012)

Yeah, I wouldn't have one percent of the skill needed to create covers that look that good. I think for the nonce, I'm going to stick with the stock photo + GIMP manipulation + basic text approach. Especially since it's for short stories, where the ancillary production values aren't expected to be quite as high. For my novel, I'm going to commission actual cover art, of course.


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## Telcontar (Jan 7, 2012)

My problem is I'm in love with hand-drawn art, and that's how all my visions for covers appear in my head. I might need to fall back on photo manipulation for the beginning efforts.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Jan 7, 2012)

Another possibility that occurs to me is to find something on e.g. Deviantart and ask the artist if you can license it. If you find something that works well for a story, it could be a good way to get good, non-photographic art for relatively cheap.


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## Joanna (Jan 7, 2012)

Telcontar said:


> My problem is I'm in love with hand-drawn art, and that's how all my visions for covers appear in my head. I might need to fall back on photo manipulation for the beginning efforts.



My sister's building up her portfolio and was thinking of doing some covers for others (she's done some for her own books), she'd love to do hand drawn as that's her speciality as an illustrator. She would be looking for Â£50-100 depending on complexity. If anyone is interested you can find her portfolio here: katrinaconquista.com

Hope it's OK to post these details 

Personally I've had a cover from 99designs for my non-fiction book - that was about $350. I was happy with the price as I'll re-use most of the cover for the next volumes in the series. 

From what I've seen around $300+ gets you into the slightly more professional market, but you can still find individual artists for less if you look around. Also if you like someone's style on deviantart it's not just licencing you can approach them about - you can ask if they take commissions, and they could do a custom cover in their style for you. But then you'd have to negotiate the price yourself


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## mythique890 (Jan 7, 2012)

I was also going to suggest looking for artists on Deviantart, even though I'm not sure if they'd want royalties or not.  It probably depends on the artist.

I have an acquaintance who is a freelance illustrator with a style I like.  When the time comes I'll probably approach her.  If she doesn't want to do it, she'll be able to recommend someone at least.


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## Telcontar (Jan 7, 2012)

Turns out I have already approached few DeviantArt artists - no responses yet.  

Thanks for letting us know about your sister's work, Joanna. Her art is very interesting, but not the style I'm looking for on any current projects. I'll keep her in mind for the future, though.


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## The Blue Lotus (Jan 7, 2012)

Joanna said:


> My sister's building up her portfolio and was thinking of doing some covers for others (she's done some for her own books), she'd love to do hand drawn as that's her speciality as an illustrator. She would be looking for Â£50-100 depending on complexity. If anyone is interested you can find her portfolio here: katrinaconquista.com
> 
> Hope it's OK to post these details
> 
> ...




Interesting work. Not what I am looking for but very well done none the less.


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## Joanna (Jan 7, 2012)

The Blue Lotus said:


> Interesting work. Not what I am looking for but very well done none the less.



Thanks, her personal style can be a bit shocking to some   She's an art graduate though, and actually can do work that's a bit more "normal" too  I'm currently bugging her to do a portrait of my novel's main character who's a human/dragon hybrid - here's hoping for a birthday present


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## JazzTD (Jan 7, 2012)

Ah, I could lend a hand for cover art if anyone wanted me to. I'm a very vector oriented artist though, I don't do realism ... ever.

But I'm decent, I believe, sort of, not fabulous at all.

But mostly, I mean if anyone needs a hand and can't afford or find anyone else just let me know, I enjoy requests so I don't charge.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Jan 7, 2012)

JazzTD, do you have samples of your work online we could look at? I'd be interested in employing the services of a fellow MSer


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## TWErvin2 (Jan 7, 2012)

If individuals are seeking a cover artist, Christine Griffin, who did the cover art for both of my novels might be someone to consider.

You can see the cover art for my novels at my website (click on the link in my signature file) and message me if you have any questions.


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## Xanados (Jan 7, 2012)

Conceptart.org
Brilliant site, that is.


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## Telcontar (Jan 7, 2012)

TWErvin2 said:


> If individuals are seeking a cover artist, Christine Griffin, who did the cover art for both of my novels might be someone to consider.
> 
> You can see the cover art for my novels at my website (click on the link in my signature file) and message me if you have any questions.



Those are beautiful. Given her bio I assume they are hand drawn. Definitely will be contacting her.


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## TWErvin2 (Jan 7, 2012)

Telcontar said:


> Those are beautiful. Given her bio I assume they are hand drawn. Definitely will be contacting her.



Telcontar,
Christine Griffin is wonderful to work with. I saw sketches and such as she worked, but the products are completed using some version of Photoshop, I think--I like to think I write pretty well, but I'm not an artist--obviously


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## JazzTD (Jan 8, 2012)

Telcontar said:


> Those are beautiful. Given her bio I assume they are hand drawn. Definitely will be contacting her.




Actually most of her art is Digital, from what I can tell anyway, but I'm not wearing my glasses right now, so I might be wrong. However it seems like a digital painting, reminds me of some done with Corel Painter.

I don't have any book cover examples at the moment, but I do have general art examples, it isn't much different honestly, just need the right contrast between the colors and the words, and all that jazz(heh, I made a funny).

Examples of my art are like my avatar
<------

Or this or this or this or this.

As I said, I'm not fabulous, but if anyone needs a hand I'll lend it.


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## Telcontar (Jan 8, 2012)

Your stuff looks pretty good to me! I'll be keeping you in mind too.

Anyway, digital art I also consider hand drawn, for the most part. I was just making a distinction between an artist - who can create images from scratch - and a graphic designer who does not necessarily do that. A lot of graphic artists I know only use pre-existing art and arrange it within a new image. Takes some skill as well, but I prefer the former.


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## JazzTD (Jan 8, 2012)

Ah, yeah, lots of artists enjoy using stock pieces in their art. Some for reference others to edit. I don't though, it makes me feel like I didn't actually create anything, but that's just me, I have my own stock to use anyway.

To each their own.


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## boboratory (Jan 8, 2012)

Benjamin Clayborne said:


> Another possibility that occurs to me is to find something on e.g. Deviantart and ask the artist if you can license it. If you find something that works well for a story, it could be a good way to get good, non-photographic art for relatively cheap.



As a publisher, I have used Benjamin's method, I have used Deviant art to ask for cover artists, and I have met many interesting people and found art a reasonable prices...


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## MichaelSullivan (Jan 9, 2012)

Devor said:


> All three of those may have taken only a few hours of graphic manipulation and a little bit of back-and-forth with the artist, but they all show rather a lot of skill.  You also need rights on the dagger.  Can I ask, how much would something like that cost?



I actually created it is a 3-d modling program - if you look cafefully you can see the individual pieces - and then manipulated in photoshop. But to the question at hand...royalty free stock photgraphy can be as cheap as $10 or as much as seeral thousand. Most times $59 budget will get you what you need. I used to run an advertising studio and we bought stock photogrpahy by the CD - where you'd get 300 images for one price of like $120 but I'm sure they are much cheaper nowadays.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Jan 9, 2012)

I ended up buying a couple of stock photos, editing them together, and doing some color/effect manipulation to make the cover for my short story. You can see the result here:


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## Telcontar (Jan 9, 2012)

A beautiful picture! Where exactly did you buy these photos, and how much did they run you, if I may ask?


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Jan 9, 2012)

They were both from dreamstime.com. I searched for "walled city" and went through four or five pages, picking out the ones that most matched what I was going for (ominous creepy foreground in front of a walled city). (The little dude standing on the rock was just drawn in by hand.)

The way dreamstime (and, I gather, most stock photo sites) work is that you buy "credits." Each photo costs credits; different resolutions cost different amounts. So you might get a 1500x2000 pic for 7 credits, a 2000x2500 for 8 credits, etc.

You can buy credits in packs (in which case, at dreamstime anyway, they cost $0.93 - $1.25 each depending on how many you buy at once -- the more you buy, the more you save, etc.). I spent $24.99 on a pack of 25 credits, and used up 17 credits to buy the two pictures. So, it ran me about $17. I'm sure I could have gotten away with something for less, but I liked these and the end result came out decent, so I think it was worth it. 

I've uploaded the story to Amazon for publishing; fingers crossed, it'll be available for sale later today


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## Devor (Jan 9, 2012)

Benjamin Clayborne said:


> I ended up buying a couple of stock photos, editing them together, and doing some color/effect manipulation to make the cover for my short story. You can see the result here:
> 
> View attachment 341



The font looks good but the yellow outline doesn't, I don't think.  But you can try some fun things with fonts and colors, like copying the text and overlaying the text with itself.  "Demons" in one color placed almost ontop of "Demons" in another color, kind of thing.  I've gotten some pretty good effects that way, but everything I've done in graphics is self-taught and has taken me hours upon hours, so I'm sure there's probably a better way.

Best of luck with it on Amazon.


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## MichaelSullivan (Jan 11, 2012)

Nice selections Benjamin, I would suggest you play around with your typography a bit though. You might even consider extending a sky above the walled city and put the title in there as it would be less busy behind the book's title and that would make it stand out more.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Jan 11, 2012)

Yeah, I'd thought about that... probably wouldn't have been too hard to do, but I was tired and had been fiddling with it for an hour and was getting impatient ;-)


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## MichaelSullivan (Jan 12, 2012)

Don't rush it or work on it when you are tired. Even do a few different variations with different fonts and colors than ask some people their opinions. It's too important an aspect to rush through.


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## Alexander Knight (Jan 20, 2012)

I used Deviantart for the cover of Princess of Prophecy.  
	

		
			
		

		
	






I found a unicorn I wanted to use and the artist was easy to work with. She sees it as a mutually beneficial endeavor (as I do).
I've done a similar thing on my web site, Alexander Knight  It has rotating artwork that I've gotten permission from each artist to use. I had a few artists say no, but the majority that responded allowed me to use their work.
Also, I've read a couple of articles that say that the biggest mistake epublished authors make is using bad cover art. They say it's the cover art that gets people to look further and when the art looks cheap the reader assumes the whole book is of a similar quality.


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## Graham Irwin (Jan 25, 2012)

I thought it would be fun to post the evolution of my book cover, as I just did a new one today. 

That's the cool thing about self-publishing, you can change the cover on a whim  My orders ship right from the plant to the customer, so I don't bulk-order, and each book is a little different. I find something I missed, or a comma I forgot, and then... Pop! New Edition


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