Better Safe Than Sorry Royalty Free Pictures and Videos For Book Covers & Trailers

Recently a lot of people have been making their own book covers and I must say doing a bang up job! There was recently an issue regarding the use of a copyrighted picture by one author.  For one thing you can go look up a legally filed copyright here www.copytiright.com    if you know the name of the artist.  Second of all, look for a copyright by the artist on their work as many inscribe their own copyright on the site you are looking at. Here's another site with information about Copyright and Fair Use Information
 http://www.umuc.edu/library/copy.shtml#whatis .  Then, here is a site Understanding Copyright Free and Stock Photography at http://www.brighthub.com/multimedia/photography/articles/81353.aspx which may be helpful.
 
Oh, and here is another helpful site to check out :
http://www.altered-book.com/copyright-free-images.html

Here are some Free Stock Photo sites to check out but it is clearly written - Some of the free stock photo sites offer copyright free stock photos for any use but please always check the image licence as you may have to provide a credit or link back to the photographer should you choose to download the free stock photos for your own use. 

Check out these sites perhaps they will help with not only book covers but trailers which I will talk about briefly in a minute:

http://www.public-domain-photos.com/
http://www.openphoto.net/
http://www.morguefile.com/
http://www.sxc.hu/help/7_2
http://www.freeimages.co.uk/
http://imagebase.davidniblack.com/main.php 
http://www.historicalstockphotos.com/  
http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/  
http://www.freepixels.com/ 
http://www.stockvault.net/ 
http://www.unprofound.com/  
http://www.photorogue.com/  
http://www.freerangestock.com/
http://www.freefoto.com/index.jsp  
http://www.everystockphoto.com/  
http://www.nasaimages.org/  
http://www.cepolina.com/freephoto/  
http://www.abstractinfluence.com/forums/gallery/album.php?album_id=2  http://www.kavewall.com/stock/index.html  
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.free-stockphotos.com/  

This is one of my favorite and many times you can write the artist and tell them what you would like to use their art for ex: book cover or trailer and tell them you will credit their art if they wish and many times they will let you use it.  So good luck

http://www.renderosity.com/  


In Renderosity you must join as with some of the sites above but it is free on this site and on most of the sites above I believe. It is full of many kinds of pictures and art genres under Galleries then click what ever kind of genre such as Fantasy, Horror, Portrait or just type what you're looking for in search.  I usually choose Poser in the select a gallery on the left.  There are various ways to search once you get used to it or just look at the galleries. It's an awesome place.

So good luck on making your book cover or finding the right art or having one of your friends or associates make it for you just make sure and give them the credit. :-)

BOOK TRAILERS

I've found out that book trailers are important too though I didn't know that a while back.  So there are also royalty free videos out there and on You Tube also. Just search in your browser and read up on them before you attempt to use any for your trailer.  Here is also a good site I found that teaches you how to make a book trailer at least it looks knowledgeable and I will probably use it:
http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2008/12/03/book-trailers-11-steps-to-make-your-own/    

There are plenty of other sites on this if you just type <How to make a video book trailer> in your browser.

Also there is a really awesome company out there that makes book trailers for Authors with publishing deals and though they are expensive $250.00 -  2,500.00 (yikes) they offer a good set of trailers they have done recently and in the past.  They are known as Circle Of Seven Productions and they do everything from soup to nuts meaning simple trailers to Marketing and distribution of said trailer. Their site can be found here:


http://www.cosproductions.com/  


Now they also have a page of videos they have made by Genre, Publishers and Genres. I'll list the page for Genres here and you can choose as you wish.


http://www.cosproductions.com/videos/genres  


Well I hope this helps with a few things. I know there is a lot of information here but take your time and come back to check.  This blog isn't going anywhere. I wish you all good luck in your writing, publishing, book covers and book trailers. And as a final question from me how many of you have made book trailers yet or are going to? :-)


Now Write ON!! ♥