Piece of advice to all writers who need a cover but don’t have the money to hire an artist: use the public domain.
Online, you can find quite a lot databases for photography in the public domain that you could use (always check their specific rules regarding commercial use), like Pixabay, Unsplash, or Pexels.
But, even a tad more charming, there are also hundreds of thousands of paintings in the public domain. If the artist has been dead for over 70 years, the image is (typically) in the public domain and can be used however you want it. This is not a new concept, big publishers like Penguin and the Oxford’s World Classics do the same!
When you use such images, always make sure that 1. the painting really is in the public domain (sometimes the art itself may be in the public domain, but the photograph you are using to see it is not!), and 2. that it is an appropriate image. Sometimes, an image may look innocent and fitting, but would actually cause irritation, like accidentally using a painting of siblings for a romance or using a controversial image for different reasons.
Some places you can find art in the public domain (always double check!): National Gallery of Art, Artvee, Public Domain Image Archive, and most websites of bigger museums.
[Prompt Calender: April 23rd, World Book and Copyright Day]
Your cover will look so much more professional and interesting if you use public domain imagery rather than AI.
Your hard work deserves thoughtful presentation.
Also check the Wikimedia Commons. Alot of Public Domain stuff there!
a clarification: if something is in the public domain, that means nobody holds the copyright on that thing anymore. this is not the same thing as the thing being available for anyone to use as long as they follow the rules.
the entire reason photographers put their work on places such as Unsplash and Wikimedia Commons is to make the photos available for anyone to use as long as they follow the rules. each photo being helpfully labeled with what the rules are, which on Unsplash is usually either (a) "pay for a license", or (b) "free with attribution for non-commercial use, but for commercial use, pay for a license". note that non-commercial use of a category b photo is still a licensed use, it's just a different license.
on Wikimedia Commons, many photos are in the public domain, thus available for anyone with no rules to follow. the rules on the rest vary, but Wikimedia Commons requires those rules to include that modified versions of these photos must also be available for anyone to use and modify. again, that's licensed use. that's the copyright holder saying it's available for anyone to use, here's the rules. anything in the public domain, there are no rules because there is no copyright holder.
I would be very surprised to learn any images available on Unsplash are in the public domain.
























