Support for Indie Authors discussion
Cover Workshop
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Basic Cover help -- technical issues
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Hey Jeffrey.Pinterest is a great source for various photos if they are of a public nature and not posted by a Photographer's company. There are also many free sites for stock photos.
Photoshop is expensive, about $500 or so for the program. Canva is fairly decent if you have a knack for graphics.
There are many free programs to install similar to Photoshop, like Gimp and others.
If you have a Mac, PhotoScape X is an excellent option, works wonders and is a free program for Mac users, which you will find in your Apps.
Keep in mind, any program you chose will take time to learn the tips and tricks.
As for random photos you find, if you crop the parts you like the best, you can make them your own.
I do my own covers and teasers, but I love doing graphics.
I hope this has been helpful, give a shout if you have questions.
The first cover of my first book was an overlay of two photos with Tyndall effect I took and some cheap shades I drew myself. You can still see it in the old edition (if you do, please have mercy and don't comment on it). I paint my own covers now but wasn't confident enough back then.Point is, maybe you can take a really pretty photo?
Melanie wrote: "Hey Jeffrey.Pinterest is a great source for various photos if they are of a public nature and not posted by a Photographer's company. There are also many free sites for stock photos.
Photoshop is ..."
Thank you for these great ideas Melanie.
Haru wrote: "The first cover of my first book was an overlay of two photos with Tyndall effect I took and some cheap shades I drew myself. You can still see it in the old edition (if you do, please have mercy a..."Thanks Haru. I've got one I think in the works that I'll be happy with. I may end up taking a picture and trying to photoshop a cover together.
Okay so I have a JPEG file for one of my proposed covers and I would really like to post it as a cover help thread, but I candidly have no idea how to do it. I've seen proposed covers added before. Does anyone know how to explain it to someone who's never done it before?Thank you everyone.
Mod
View your image.
Right click on it and it will bring up a menu. Click on "copy image address".
Go to the cover workshop folder and start a new topic with the heading "Cover Help - [title]/[genre]"
In the body of your post, you'll type any necessary text, along with this (sans asterisks) "<*img src="***"/>
Instead of the three asterisks, you'll put in the image address.
It should start with:
https://images.gr-assets.com/authors
Mod
When you upload it there, the following steps are the same: right-click, 'copy image address', then paste the link into your post with the HTML syntax Dwayne posted.
Goodreads can be quite picky so shortened links might not always work, and make sure the link ends with the suffix (usually .jpg). Use the 'preview' and if the image doesn't load, the link is not done correctly.
Mod
When I have a cover to put into the workshop, I upload it into the photos section of my profile here on Goodreads. I've edited my comment to make that clearer.
Dwayne wrote: "Upload your cover image to Goodreads (you can do this in the photo section of your profile).View your image.
Right click on it and it will bring up a menu. Click on "copy image address".
Go to..."
Thanks Dwayne!
If you are wanting to use like Canva, Book Brush or Photoshop, look at the free sights like Pixabay, Photopin, dreamstime, unsplash, pexels, etc...those all offer free pictures.
Another option, which isn't free but is quite cheap, is Affinity Designer. They've got a free trial of the program that you can download and test out. It does require some basic design skills to use it, but they do have some video tutorials on their website that might get you up to speed.
Scott wrote: "Another option, which isn't free but is quite cheap, is Affinity Designer. They've got a free trial of the program that you can download and test out. It does require some basic design skills to us..."Much appreciated Scott.
Jeffrey wrote: "Melanie wrote: "Hey Jeffrey.Pinterest is a great source for various photos if they are of a public nature and not posted by a Photographer's company. There are also many free sites for stock photo..."
You're welcome.
Tomas wrote: "If your book is not published yet (and thus it's not listed on Goodreads), you'll need to upload your cover elsewhere - there are image hosting services, such as Imgur and many others.When you up..."
Thanks for mentioning 'jpg.' I usually post from Wordpress but they changed the format and haven't figured it out yet, so I posted to my profile. Worked perfectly.
I actually put my cover together using Word and it has worked much better than using the cover creator feature on KDP - which is extremely limited in what it offers. I simply make my margins "0" and then add a picture I've taken, either to the entire cover or a section of the cover. I then use "boxes" in the spots where I want to write the title and author name. It's not as primo as one done by an artist (at rates of hundreds of dollars), but its free. Once I finish, I save it as a pdf. I then go to a website that will convert your pdf to a jpeg for free. After the quick conversion, you simply save the download to your picture gallery. It's then ready to download on cover creator if you're using KDP. You can also take one of your photos and convert it to what looks like a painting by using one of the free websites that do that. It can make your photos look really cool. Hope this helps someone out there!
I should think your method will be found helpful, and all the possible variations that could be discovered on the way. Possibly there are very few writers who are also graphic designers and photographers, so it is one more 'Indie' headache made lighter.
I started with using KDP’s cover creator, but quickly got bored with their layouts. Someone on Twitter recommended Canva, and I started using that. I love it. Tons of layouts, and you can save your covers easily to the formats and sizes needed for Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook- and other things like flyers, emails, etc. it’s very user friendly too, no coding experience needed. For photos, I bought a basic iStock Photo license, thousands of pics at your fingertips, high quality stuff. Good luck!
Sandra wrote: "I actually put my cover together using Word and it has worked much better than using the cover creator feature on KDP - which is extremely limited in what it offers. I simply make my margins "0" an..."Thank you, Sandra. I'll follow your instructions for a short story am writing.
I have done covers on Canva, Book Brush would be another. You can also do them in Photoshop or another similar program. Just look up your specs for the covers for the various platforms. Just remember the norms for the various genres and don't stray too far from them. I'd make ones for short stories but not for my books.
B.A. wrote: "I have done covers on Canva, Book Brush would be another. You can also do them in Photoshop or another similar program. Just look up your specs for the covers for the various platforms. Just rememb..."If you use a picture or graphic from Canva, do you need to credit them as the source?
I would just say down on canva with their photos. I went out and found what I wanted and then credited to the site and person. I did use one of my photos on a cover and probably will again. Because I'm not a graphic artist, I just hire mine out so they come out right. Abilene (it can be found on Amazon under B. A. Mealer) is the one I did on Canva that I kept. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either. I use it for a bonus book when someone signs up to my email list.
Jeffrey, please don’t follow Melanie’s advice! Pinterest is absolutely no resource to look for images to use! It’s just random people posting random images with links! You will violate copyrights by using them! Same for any other “source” that isn’t provided by a proper stock site! You need the appropriate commercial license! Any photos and images you see online and anywhere else are protected by copyright and aren’t stock to use. You have to get your stock images from a real decent site like iStockphoto, Depositphoto, Shutterstock, Stocksy, Photobash etc. ... Even free stock sites like Unsplash or Visual Hunt aren’t safe to use because there it happens often that users upload photos that aren’t their own and thus violate copyrights. These free sites don’t offer you any protection whatsoever if you accidentally end up using such an image and you can end up with a lawsuit. The sites where you pay for the proper commercial license I mentioned above, will protect you in case something like that happens.
I highly recommend Photobash, there you will get a whole pack of images for very affordable prices but they don’t offer model photos and more objects, landscapes and other effect sets. I love them for my digital art.
Please inform yourself about copyright law and don’t use anything random, you will end up violating other people’s and artists’ rights. So be careful!
About programmes: Photoshop doesn’t cost 500€ anymore. Since 2016 I think, they changed to a subscription based license. You can rent Photoshop and Lightroom with their photography plan for about 11€ per month.
Someone mentioned the Affinity programmes. They’re great too. Affinity Photo is similar to photoshop but you can buy it for about 40€ normally. Some things are a bit trickier with this than Photoshop, some things are easier.
If you are looking for 'free' pictures to use as you want, Pixabay and Pexels have some. Many aren't that great. Or you can pay for them from like Pond 5 and Getty Images. Put in free images for commercial use. Canva and Book brush have photos you can 'buy' and use. Because I'm a photo bug, I use mine a lot for various things on the web. I've also noted that the photos are protected and to not try and steal them.
I have found that DepositPhotos and Shutterstock give away 10 free images with their free trial that you can cancel whenever afterwards and avoid paying the monthly fee. This also gives you the chance to try out their services. A screen comes up when you are downloading the pictures and lets you know about the rights (mine came with the free image). They also offer free images but you would need to source them on the page just inside your cover. I also found you can use Fiverr to have individuals cut out images. I recommend Jalal1020 who removes the background on photos on 5 images for $5. He does a fantastic job.
As far as designing the cover, I stumbled across a free online cover design tool which is fantastic by an author Derek Murphy who likes to help authors on a budget get a foot in the door and make their covers and books look professional. Just type in Creativeindie (his website) or "DIY Book Covers Derek Murphy" into Google.
I hope this helps. If you need any additional information or have any questions about accessing any of the tools I mentioned, let me know. I'm happy to help out. Good luck with everything.
As someone has said already, Shuttertock will allow 10 free downloads as a trial, but you need to turn off the renewal so you don't get charged later.It depends what you want to do, you can play around in PowerPoint and save as a jpeg, but you'll probably need something like Paint.net to then re-size the image (longest edge has to be 1000 pixels min, with a resolution of 300dpi - I think).
I think Shutterstock also have some sort of image manipulation tools available.
Leon wrote: "B.A. wrote: "I have done covers on Canva, Book Brush would be another. You can also do them in Photoshop or another similar program. Just look up your specs for the covers for the various platforms..."Leon wrote: "B.A. wrote: "I have done covers on Canva, Book Brush would be another. You can also do them in Photoshop or another similar program. Just look up your specs for the covers for the various platforms..."
Check their rules, but I don't believe so. I get most of mine from free photosites. I'll use Canva's templates and back grounds.
FYI, If you just want an e-bbok cover, look at various sites. You can pick them up for around $35-$50. I just have mine done for $100 at 100Covers. They are good and have done several of mine.
B.A. wrote: "FYI, If you just want an e-bbok cover, look at various sites. You can pick them up for around $35-$50. I just have mine done for $100 at 100Covers. They are good and have done several of mine."Thanks BA. Good advice as always. Much appreciated.
So I am trying to create a few covers for a few short stories. I can't really sink a bunch of money into something that is 10 pages or so long. One of them is basically just a background cover, the title, my name, and my MC's sigil. I was thinking of trying photoshop. I've heard of Canva and Book Brush. I'm looking at those.
Another one is I am hoping to just use some stock photos but I have no idea where to get something like that.
I know this sounds kind of absurdly basic, but I previously hired an artist and was happy with her, but these short stories need to go in a different kind of direction.
Any thoughts or advice would be enormously appreciated.