Why I Think Twice About Using Stock Images For My Book Covers…

 

As a fairly new author, I know how hard it is to create a cover or to afford to pay someone to create a cover.

Many self published authors use stock images from sites like Shutterstock and Pixabay.

When creating my book covers, I knew I had to be careful if I were to use any images to make sure they were free images where the artist released all copyrights to and to edit it so much no one could tell I was using a stock image.

That’s a large reason why I can’t publish the character sheets for Crooked Halo with the images I used for my personal references. I’m going to have to create my own images to publish a book with character sheets.

Here is a perfect example why an author should be careful of using stock images. If they do use an image through a publisher, I would expect the publisher to get all exclusive rights to the image so I wouldn’t be finding 2 other books using a similar image.

Artists should always disclose if an image is being used by others. There are people advertising cover designs for sale on a bunch of groups I’m in. I always wonder why someone would buy a stock cover image anyone else could use. I’m throwing out this little PSA as a cautionary tale.

One of these authors I know for sure is published through a publishing house, normally. I don’t know if this is a cover she created herself or paid someone for. I don’t even know if it would bother her to see the same image being used for another cover.

Personally, I strive for unique designs to help my books stand out. They are beautiful covers and yet, it bothers me, lol. I kind of look for uniqueness and if the artist didn’t tell these people they sold the image to others that is ethically wrong or if the authors used stock images, they might want to rethink continuing to do so in the future.

What do you think when you see something like this?