So you just started an account... Or maybe you've been here a while and you just aren't getting a feel for things. Well Dorian is here to help you out! Here is an ongoing guide and the tricks of the trade. How to get followers, how to critique work...
Now, the book covers on Wattpad can be protected a bit since you're not making any money off of it, the image is on the internet is freely available, and you can even argue it's a transformative piece since you rarely just take the image wholesale. The problem comes when you try to sell the book with that cover or use that image for any kind of marketing or advertising purposes.
Now, a responsible, good illustrator will provide you the stock images as well as where they got them. With luck, they got those images from free places rather than ripping them from Google's image search page. However, knowing what I know about most Wattpad artists, they probably stole all of that content.
Here's the kicker. Even if you download free fonts and free stock images online..., they still have clauses explaining when you can use them, and almost every free font and free images say they are not to be used commercially for free! They might be free to use for your presentation at school, but they aren't free for you to sell. So, even if you are careful, there is a good chance you weren't careful enough.
So, what do you do? Well, you can buy the rights to stock images you like. Many sites are available that do nothing but sell image rights. However, let's assume you want something distinctly yours. You'll hire an illustrator. Illustrators are the ones who will draw an image. Although some illustrators will do the text and design for you, it's just as often you'd probably need to hire two people, one to draw the image, and one to add all of the effects and text for the cover.
The illustrator will draw you a picture that you envision. I also suppose you could hire a photographer and a model instead, but probably not. So, you hire someone and they draw your image for you. Congratulations, that image is yours! EVEN THEN, you must make sure he offers commercial use, something many illustrators will charge you as much as double for to have the privilege of being able to sell the image you just paid to have drawn!
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Most of you probably don't have to worry about this. You're not trying to sell your book. Even if you did sell your book, no one will probably challenge you because you're using a random picture from a free site and didn't read the fine print. At worst, if someone did challenge it, you'd just have to drag down your book cover until you could make a new one. The more popular your story though, the more likely you'll get the interest of people. Even then, it'd be difficult to prove that their image contributed to any profit you gained, so you're pretty safe, and if you're popular enough to get caught, you're probably wealthy enough to hire a professional who will do it right.
There are Many Places to Find An Artist
Are you looking for someone to draw for you? The first thing you need to realize is the price. Art is expensive. The cheapest artists might work at $15 an image, while the best artists might go up to $300. This is just one character being drawn in a simple environment I'm talking about. Every additional person adds just as much. If you want a ten-person portrait, you could very well be expecting to pay $1000s for an image. There is a reason giant compilation images are done so rarely.
