Ask any book marketing expert what the key to good book
sales is and they will tell you it’s having an eye catching cover. Of course,
it goes without saying that the first thing you need is to have a well written
book. The cover and the title are what draw potential readers to your book so
both had better be top notch.
Last week, I happened on a discussion amongst authors on
Twitter. Many of them were in an uproar over the fact that the cover of a
fellow author’s upcoming book was virtually identical to that of an author
whose book was already published. These people were blaming the second author
for “ripping off” the first author, and it got me to thinking.
Cover art has changed a lot since I picked up my first book
back in the 80’s. For a long time, book covers were hand drawn, which meant the
chances of those covers being copied were pretty slim. From there, covers
progressed to photographs of live models. Again, it was unlikely these photos
would be duplicated as the photographers owned the copyrights to the photos and
the publishers or authors usually handpicked the models.
In the last several years, there’s been a new trend in cover
art, and it’s my opinion this is what’s causing the problem with multiple
titles having the same cover. There are a number of websites that anyone can join
that contain stock photos. As a member of these sites, you are entitled to
download and license a specific number of photos each month to use any way you choose.
I’ve belonged to one of these sites for nearly two years. My
cover artist uses photos I choose from the site to create my book covers. In an
effort to minimize duplication, I try to take different photos and have him
layer them together which also allows for more originality in the cover.
I can always tell when my peers belong to the same website
when I see photos I think of as mine being used by other authors. The problem
is the photos aren’t mine. These websites don’t remove a photo once an author
has licensed it. The same photo can be licensed as many times as the website
wants by as many people as they want to license it to. With that policy in play,
you can see where it’s difficult to have a unique cover for your book.
Why don’t authors and publishers hire
photographers or artists to create their cover images? Simple, it all comes
down to money. It costs me $120 a year to be a member of the stock photo
website and I can license and download up to 10 photos per month. What I don’t
use rolls over to the next month, but I can always pay an additional $1 per
photo if I happen to need more pictures than my download amount allows.
While I would love, and I mean love, to hire models to pose
for pictures I can use on my book covers, I am an independent author. Right
now, I don’t make enough to afford that kind of luxury and neither do many of
my peers. We make do with what we have. So, please, keep that in mind the next
time you want to bash an author because you think she “stole” someone else’s
cover.
