3 ways to get your photography featured on book covers

Imagine this: you walk into your favourite bookshop. You’re having a browse and taking it all in and then you see it - a thriller book right there on the table with your image on the cover. It’s a good feeling.

Finding out that this was a career path I could pursue - mixing a love of books and photography - seemed like such a me thing. But it took me a while to get any success. The first image of mine that appeared on a book cover was when I was a teenager and just starting out in photography. I didn’t get paid - I was just excited for the opportunity. I have now sold images for £££s internationally and designed book covers.

As with many situations - there are a lot of different ways that your photography can appear on book covers.

Here are just a few ways that you can get started.

Note: It’s important to note that to sell images for book covers you need to offer images that designers will want - this is a whole different subject that I hope to write a post about at some point.

1. Join a book cover agency

This is by far the way that I would suggest to most people interested in getting into book cover photography work to try. Once you are accepted by an agency you upload your images to them and they can decide whether or not they want to accept each image. When accepted images are live they become part of a library of very book cover specific images that is used by book designers. They manage the sales and take their fee.

The agencies that I am most aware of are Arcangel and Trevillion. There may be more, but those are the two that are very much on my radar.

These agencies are usually quite specific about what kind of imagery they want and will not accept images that are too generic.

I would say, from my experience, images that I have sold well have been quite atmospheric and generally feature a figure of some kind. You can never quite know what images designers are looking for but Arcangel has an app that has some really great advice on what kind of images they are after.

It’s worth noting here that even if you get into the agency and have a good number of images accepted it does not guarantee sales. I had been building my library for quite a few years before I got my first sale.

2. Join a general stock photography website

Although the book cover agencies are also stock, there is a barrier of being accepted by agencies that might stand in your way. That’s where other stock websites come in. These websites often have a lower bar for entry - that your images are focused and generally well composed.

General stock websites will usually accept most kinds of images unlike the previous agencies which are very book cover specific. However, I often see these websites credited on the back of book covers too.

From these websites your work can be licensed for many more reasons, just a few of them being: websites, news, posters, and advertising.

Here are some stock websites I am aware of: Alamy, Getty, Shutterstock, iStock, Adobe Stock.

3. Network with indie authors

The first time one of my images appeared on a book cover was after I posted book review online. The author saw it and had a look around my website at the time and thought that one particular image really suited his book. I didn’t get paid for this - I was young and this was an exciting this to happen. But it did show me that there are authors out there who are in need of covers for their books.

What’s next?

Once you’ve been accepted into an agency or stock site - now you need to start creating and uploading your work. But how do you create images that will sell? That’s a whole other subject.

Good luck.