Trying to do some updating on my website and redoing my premade ebook covers section. Here are some new ones I just uploaded. Be sure to visit the main page to see if the covers are still available as well as the full gallery of available premade ebook covers.
This month I’ve done a lot of formatting so not many new covers to share. But I did want to share with you one of my latest covers that I did. I recently formatted and did cover designs for two books for indie author, Stan Schatt. He had written a MG novel with his grandson and a mystery/thriller novel on his own. I did the cover designs and formatted the interior for both books.
Stan posted about his experience with me (and Indie Designz). I found it interesting as I know a lot of authors wonder if it’s less expensive to hire someone or to just use the services offered by Createspace.
Not only did Stan find it less expensive but had more choices regarding interior fonts and cover design. If you’re an indie author wondering whether or not to hire a professional or to try to DIY it I’d recommend reading Stan’s experience then figuring out what will work best for you.
There are tons of professionals out there I’m certain you’d be able to find someone that would fit into your budget.
For more info on Stan and his books, you can follow him at his website.
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For more info follow her at the official Dianne Emley website
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Some books I’ve formatted this month:
Here’s some of the ebook and print cover designs I did during April.
Visit my premade ebook covers gallery to view all the available book covers. I add new ones each week. If you see something you like, just email me the cover number and book info. More details are available on my main website. Covers are sold as is on a first come basis. Contact me today if you see something that’d be perfect for your book.
Below are some of the covers I’ve done over the past month. It’s been very busy so I haven’t been able to update as much as I would have liked. Some of these were originally from my premade ebook cover section. I’ve sold quite a few the last couple weeks. I’m currently working on some new ones and hope to have those uploaded within the next few weeks.
I’m excited to share with everyone a new service I’ll be offering. I’ve started a new premium premade ebook cover selection. The premades in this group will be slightly more than my normal premades and the prices per cover will vary depending upon the amount of work that went into them. I don’t know how many I’ll have in this category. They take a bit of time to do and have a lot of fine detailed hand work involved. But it’s something I enjoy doing in my spare time. Just creating whatever is in my brain is my way of relaxing and unwinding after a busy day. So you get to take a peek inside the creepy crawly closet of my mind. Below is the first cover in my premium collection. I’ve also put the original image below so you can see the transformation. I’d love to hear any feedback on it. I’m a big believer in receiving feedback. That’s the only way any artist can grow. If you’d like to see the rest of my premade ebook cover selection you can do so HERE
original image
Here is one of my latest premade ebook covers. It could be used for paranormal or urban fantasy. With a few tweaks even thriller or horror. This one is kinda specific in character but I don’t like doing template looking premade covers. I like my premades to have more of a custom feel to them. It’s sort of my time to explore and experiment and if it ends up suiting someone’s book then that’s awesome. Or maybe it could inspire someone’s story which would be even better. I’ve also posted the original image I started with so you can see the evolution from start to finish. Visit my main premade ebook cover gallery to view all of my premade ebook covers.
Here are a few of the cover designs from the last few weeks. I’m behind on my updating. Hopefully I’ll get caught up soon. You can view more at my Deviants Art page or my website. As of the publishing of this post, I’m not taking new clients until April 2013. I’ve got a full schedule at the moment. Especially for larger projects. I might be able to squeeze in a few small ones but for the most part I’m booked until April. If you’d like more info about my cover design services or book formatting services, please send me an email.
With more and more authors designing their own covers, it’s even more important they understand their rights as well as the rights of the image holder/photographer. An easy way is to just get your photos for the cover art at a stock photo site such as Big Stock, Fotolia, or Deposit Photos.
They have various license you can purchase and explain in detail what you can and can’t do with each image. But there are some things people do with the images without realizing they’re violating copyright such as displaying the stock photo without purchasing it. By this I mean, you do a search on their site, find an image and then post that image (with the watermark) on your blog asking your readers, “Do you like this?”. Without realizing it, this is a violation of almost every stock photo sites terms of service. Unless you purchase the unwatermarked image you’re not allowed to show it on your site openly in that manner.
Then there is the issue of public domain. Say for example an artist’s work has fallen into public domain and a photographer goes into a museum and takes a picture of that artwork. While the artwork itself may be public domain, the picture taken by the photographer may not be. You still need that photographer’s permission to use the image they took. And believe it or not, there are certain buildings which you’re not allowed to use or take pictures of.
The easiest way to ensure you’re not infringing copyright is to just contact the photographer (or stock photo site) and purchase a license. You will save yourself a ton of headache later on. And the one absolute thing you never ever want to do is download an image from a Google search. That is almost a guarantee you’re violating someone’s copyright because you have no way of knowing what the original source for that image is or in what manner the owner allows his work to be used.
Not infringing upon copyright is pretty simple. If it’s not yours, don’t use it, or get permission before you do. Designers, artists, and photographers work just as hard on their images as an author does on their words so just be respectful of their hard work and ask before you use regardless of what it is you’re wanting to use.
Do you know an artist whose work has been stolen or the copyright violated?
Below are a few of the new young adult premade ebook covers added to my covers gallery. I’m always adding new premades as they sell. Even though they’re “premade” I don’t use template designs. Most of my premades are just ideas I get when seeing an image or a draft I didn’t use previously. Once the premade is sold I remove it, so I never sell premades to more than one person. Click HERE to see my full premade ebook cover gallery and for details on pricing info, etc. To view my custom designed covers visit my custom ebook covers gallery.
