In Part One I showed you all some quick tips on how to create a book cover under 20 minutes in a 7-minute video using layers and grouped levels. In the video tutorial, I showed you how to blend two or more images to create a cover that is appealing and cost-effective to anyone on a tight budget.
Today, I will be covering places you can get FREE images to create beautifully stunning covers, images that are completely free for only a limited time or free for an unlimited time.
They have over 1.5 million royalty free images to use for both personal and commercial use. No credit is needed and even SelfPubBookCovers accepts images from this location as long as they aren’t of people, don’t have names, locations, and meet other certain requirements.
My recommendation to you if you plan to use images from here is that you check out their dimensions. Some images aren’t high quality enough where you can enlarge to meet book cover dimensions. Avoid Pixalation.
This one seems very similar to Pixabay. Their images are also free to use for personal and commercial usage. No attribution is required. They do have certain requirements listed on their site like not using images of people in a bad light and you can’t sell unaltered photos. Requirements are pretty much the same as for all free images provided for commercial or personal use in other websites.
I have yet to use this site so I don’t have any advice other than always check the file size and download the largest size available to ensure best quality.
They have over 350,000 images free to use commercially. Some of the images found here don’t appear to be posted on other free sites. Their collection is always growing and there is even a place to seek out certain photos that are yet to be posted.
I remember using them briefly and again there are some very interesting images on there. Here are some past covers I created using at least one of their images per cover.
And one can’t forget the big guns like DepositPhotos and Fotolia. One can find weekly or monthly free images that remain free for a limited time. Before I could afford their service packs I would rely on such free images to create covers.
For DepositPhotos you simply click on photos on the top and their free photo of the week will be on the far right, the top section of the photos being showcased. Don’t miss out on checking them often, they have some great jewels at times. They also have free vectors and free videos.
And the best part is that if you do miss some you can go all the way to the bottom of the webpage and click on Free Pictures and they will have a collection of some of the past freebies.
As for Fotolia, they used to have weekly freebies but not anymore. They did have an event during December where they gave out a daily free image for Christmas. That was done over at their Facebook page. They do however have 10 free images when you sign up for Adobe Stock. Here are two covers created using at least one of the images they had free at the time.
Creating pleasing covers is possible you just need the know-how, which I covered in Part One of this segment, and good images to use, which I covered in this part. Use at least two images to make the cover interesting and unique. Don’t be afraid to use textures and textured backgrounds to add an extra touch to your covers.
And that is all the advice and resources I have on making your own covers on little to no budget. Best of luck and keep on writing.
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