Forum: Author Hangout

http://carolhighsmithamerica.com

I don't see anything on the site that says you can use the images.

Thanks.

The page also has a quote:

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization after my own heart. It gathers a host of creative works that others may use freely, without copyright or royalty restriction. That's exactly what I'm doing with my 52,000 images on the Library of Congress online site. Creative Commons kindly produced this detailed and lovely piece about me.

try stock.adobe.com shutterstock.com and other picture agencies. many will allow one time payment for anything with no royalties needed

If you're invested in trying stock art (purchasing the legal right to use particular images), drop me an email. I've had a steady contract with Adobe Stock (previously Fontolia.com) and have a mostly allotment of images I rarely use. While I can't transfer my licenses, I can find a bundle of alternatives you can consider, and most stock art sites allow a free 'trial period', where you can purchase and USE 10 images without paying for them (as long as you quit before the end of the trial period).

So, if you have number of books you're interested in publishing, you can pick covers for them all, the purchase the images all at once, rather than searching for each, individually (as that's always a tedious drag!). And, as we all know, Drag is meant to be a blast! ;)

If you do a Reverse Image search, via Google or other sites, they display a list of sites like this, which lists several stock art sites like Shutterstock.

As usual with stock art, you generally select the best compromise, as it's tough getting exactly the image you imagine, but you narrow the choices down.

Sorry! That reply was directed at Mushroom, not Zellus. :(

If you do a Reverse Image search, via Google or other sites, they display a list of sites like this, which lists several stock art sites like Shutterstock.

I thank you, and have done that. But in the time since I first posted this, I had not found one I liked, and decided to start with a story that is more reasonable in length.

It will likely be a year or more before I even think of doing that one, as the story needs a lot of editing if nothing else due to it's massive size. This one is much more reasonable, so a better candidate to start with.

https://funkyimg.com/i/3b2D1.jpg

And yes, this is a rough "pencil test", as I am going to be including it is the first of the "Night of Madness" series. But any feedback before I make it "more busy" would be appreciated.

I'm not familiar with the story or how the image relates, so I'll just comment on the asthetics of what's there.

1. Drop the word 'by' it's not used on the covers today.

2. drop the space before the family name.

3. Suggest you make the author name a little larger, say a third bigger, change it to a light coloured text, and place it just above the bottom of the image. Where it is now it draws attention away from the title and centre point of the image.

4. If you can do it without losing image quality enlarge the image and then crop it to have the the person in the middle of the cover both horizontally and vertically.

5. When you move the person up a little move the title up so it's half that distance from the top of the cover.

6. How relevant / important is having 'A Modern Superhero Novel' on the title cover? If it's important then take it down about a quarter in size. If Bohica is the superhero's name then drop the word novel. it may read better with this on top.

The cover art for these stories on Bookapy is a good example of what I mean about the focal point of the image in relation to the title and author name.

https://bookapy.com/s/30/survivor

https://bookapy.com/s/25/play-ball

https://bookapy.com/s/127/whirlwind

https://bookapy.com/s/116/breeder-ships-01

How is this distinguishable from normal L. Ron Hubbard?

He makes more sense while on meth.

That should work too. However, I meant that while he's on meth he makes more sense then when he's not on meth.

How is this distinguishable from normal L. Ron Hubbard?

In 52 years, he only wrote 29 "books" (most were collections of earlier published and unpublished short stories). But of those, most believe that the final 10 (1985-1987 - 11 books in 5 years if you include Battlefield Earth in 1982) were largely ghostwritten as it was far in excess of his normal writing speed in both time to complete a book, and the size of the books. The simple fact that it covered over 10,000 pages in 2 years when his normal output was a few hundred pages a year (on average when he was writing) almost screams he had little to do with it other than the outline. Even battlefield Earth is far beyond his normal writing, also at over 1,000 pages And he was also in poor health during the time of all that massive writing.

In his early days, he actually only wrote 6 novels, his last in 1954. The longest was around 300 pages in 1937. Most believe that he simply created the outline for his final 11 books, and others wrote them. Especially as the final 10 were when he was suffering from chronic illness related to his lifelong addiction to drugs and alcohol.

In reality, that is the equivalent of the amount that Stephen King wrote over the last 16 years. And he is not known to be a writer of no mean speed.

Elron on Meth? That would be his actually writing books totaling 5,000 pages every year for a decade. And not having somebody else write them and sticking his name on the cover.

I would suggest you consider looking at getting custom work done. I personally found an artist I like on DeviantArt and I'm going through her exclusively. It may be a bit more expensive than something you can do yourself but you get exactly what you want. The price will vary depending on what you want and what artist you use but to me it makes all the difference.

If I was not unemployed I would consider something like that.

I would suggest you consider looking at getting custom work done. I personally found an artist I like on DeviantArt and I'm going through her exclusively. It may be a bit more expensive than something you can do yourself but you get exactly what you want. The price will vary depending on what you want and what artist you use but to me it makes all the difference.

Depends on what you want and if you can find something already existing that does the job. My best cover is the one for Star Performance and that was created by me in GIMP with images free to use. Most of my covers are made in GIMP with images I find on the Internet and can freely use, with the remainder being stock images from Lulu which I'm allowed to use as the covers and books are available on Lulu as well.