Alamy targets authors and book cover market with encyclopaedic collection

Understanding the critical significance of choosing the perfect front cover image has helped stock photo agency Alamy offer an unrivalled solution for authors and designers.

The front cover of a book should shout out to readers ‘pick me up’! It should clearly say what the book is about and be suitable for the target audience. It is the key advertising feature and needs to look good on a traditional book shelf as well as a one inch thumbnail in an e-commerce book shop.

"An archive photo can lend a serious air and an indication of era for an historical novel. A composite of several images can give a full perspective of the focus of a more general fiction book and a single, clean picture or illustration may be perfect for a modern thriller. Alamy is recognised as having an image for everyone's every need so we are confident that authors will find what they need quickly, easily and affordably,"

It is universally recognised that photographs, used either singly or as a composite can create the correct look and feel to achieve these objectives. Trends indicate that authors are becoming more and more influential in the creative decisions for front cover designs and increasingly prefer to source the images themselves. After all who knows the contents of their book better than the author?

Picking the right pictures is not always easy and can prove quite costly. Alamy is a stock photo agency with a choice of nearly 20 million photos. It prides itself on its understanding of cover design ambitions, objectives and budget constraints and has worked hard to take the headache out of licensing stock imagery. There is a price point for every type of book, be it educational, fiction best seller or a self-published title and the collection subject range is unrivalled.

"An archive photo can lend a serious air and an indication of era for an historical novel. A composite of several images can give a full perspective of the focus of a more general fiction book and a single, clean picture or illustration may be perfect for a modern thriller. Alamy is recognised as having an image for everyone's every need so we are confident that authors will find what they need quickly, easily and affordably," comments Rachel Wakefield, Alamy’s Head of Sales.

Alamy has designed a showcase of photos considered to be a natural fit for varying genres of book titles to give authors an inspiring snap shot of choice available to them. Account manager Nick King is available to discuss prices and offer any advice needed.

Nick King
01235 844644
nickk@alamy.com