Need cover help

I sold rights to some of my backlist titles to an ebook publisher, and I've just seen the proposed covers to two of them. I was not happy and conveyed this to the publisher, who said that they would work on it some more, or I was welcome to supply my own artwork.

What I'd like to achieve is a strong graphic cover like the one you see as my avatar, the cover of my upcoming book with Viking. But Viking spent a ton of money on that cover, which wouldn't make sense for an ebook reprint. I'm hoping that you folks can give me some suggestions, either for stock services that provide images one can use for free, or for a very reasonably priced (because I'd have to pay out of pocket) graphic artist who can come up with something inspired by the DANGEROUS FICTION cover.

Thanks! (And mods, if this is the wrong place for this post, please do move it.)

chris ell said:

So...you want to try and DIY? If so, they probably used Illustrator for the cover in your avi. Not very complicated but you need to know what you're doing and where you're heading. It takes planning.
Stock? I really dont know if you can find clipart that will fit as is on your story. There are stock sites that have a selection of vector images. Gale has some listed in his tutorial thread.

I'd be curious to see the ones you didn't like.

Click to expand...

Thanks. They have a designer in-house who will design the actual cover; what I'm looking for is the cover art.

I don't feel comfortable posting the covers I didn't care for.
Someone worked on them and I appreciate the effort, even if I didn't love the result.

No, I'm sure. But you know, there are always bales of rotten tomatoes around here, and someone might be tempted...

metamemoir said:

Wikipedia Commons has a good images. Flickr is probably amazing, but if you don't already browse it and have a few favorites, it's hard to find what you're looking for when searching because frankly there's just a lot of crappy stuff mixed in with the good.

I looked into commissioning someone of Deviantart by simply browsing and messaging users whose work I liked. But ultimately I just spent about 80$ on a freelancer I found off Craigslist or some freelance website. I was satisfied, and I actually ended up photoshopping a lot of the design myself, but I just happen to enjoy that stuff. (to be clear, this was not for a cover per se but rather a logo for a blog...but comparable in amount of detail).

Click to expand...

Thanks, Metamemoir. I use wikipedia commons all the time for blog illustrations. Re. Flickr---is that all public domain, or would I need to contact the owner of an image I liked to acquire rights?

Thanks! Didn't know about the Commons but have bookmarked it now.