Slushpile Rescue

Use stock photography to create a fantastic inexpensive book cover

People do judge books by their covers. Despite how cliché this may sound the look and design of your book cover will be one of the most important selling tools you have. With people buying more books online without ever holding the physical book in their hands, the cover becomes one of the primary ways a patron decides how to spend their money. The cover should grab a readers attention, tell what the book is about, and instill a trust that the book is high quality and valuable. Self-publishing authors and small publishers have to work even harder to make sure their book competes with those of the larger publishers.

Large and medium book publishers have designers at their disposal and may pay for a photoshoot to provide an image for their cover. But just like you, publishers have to make sure their books are profitable. Even if it is a book they know will sell in large quantities, they will also make sure their costs are under control.

A colourful and interesting photo is often all a book cover needs. You could always try to take your own photos and with high resolution digital cameras becoming the norm, this is a cost-effective way to be creative and have complete control over what appears on your cover. However, taking a quality photo with the right lighting conditions is not an easy thing to do.

The better option is probably using stock photography. There are many stock photography websites where you may browse thousands of quality photos and illustrations to select the look that is right for your book. Many publishers use stock photos for their covers and the price of licensing a photo on some sites can be as low as a fast food meal. Quite often if you pick up a book from a publisher it will credit a high-end stock photo agency like Getty Images. But there are other stock photography agencies like iStockphoto or BigStockPhoto where prices are much more in line with what most self-publishers can afford. Wherever you purchase your cover images, just make sure they are royalty-free (RF). They will be cheaper and you will have the flexibility to use the image in your other promotional like bookmarks at no additional cost.