May 28

May 28 Finding a Cover-Worthy Image

Finding the RIGHT image for your cover can be the deciding factor between an okay or stunning cover. I brought bestselling author and The Cover Lab founder Meghan Quinn into the studio and we discussed:

our best cover images to date and WHY they were powerful
what to look for in a cover image
how a piece of paper can help you find a jaw-dropping image
where to buy images
what exclusive photos are and how to find them
tips on holding a custom shoot

Watch our cover image conversation here:

Interested in The Cover Lab? Check out their selection at www.thecoverlab.com.

Also - get more awesome advice in my marketing course or in 20+ presentations at Inkers Con!

Full Transcript:

Alessandra: All right, hey guys. I'm Alessandra Torre, you know me. This is Meghan Quinn. If you are not familiar with Megan, she writes romcoms, mostly romcoms and her books are the funniest, sexist things ever. They're amazing, so check her out. In addition to writing though, you recently launched a new business called The Cover Up, so that's why we are talking all about covers today. And I am really excited. This is one of my favorite topics. It's one of the things that I think when you're writing a book; like, covers get me the most excited. Like I'm like, it's actually happening, like this book is going to be published, but it's also like the biggest most stressful thing for me. And a lot of that revolves from a cover image.

Meghan: Yes, I agree. I think creating the cover for me, because I'm a very creative person, having the ability to put it all together and like work with the different colors; it's so exciting and thrilling. But finding the picture, you have to find the picture first or else life is just, I feel like hell for a little bit.

Alessandra: Yep, for me, the picture and the title. A lot of times like the designer is like, I need a title and I'm like, I know, but I don't have a title. Okay, so first let's talk about like, when you're looking at an image, what stands out for you that like, this is the image, this is the one I want? What normally are the factors you look for when you're looking for an image?

Meghan: I have a certain brand when it comes to my writing, it's very rare when I stray from it. But usually if you come to me, you're going to get heart humor and heat, which I like to say. And I would like to portray some kind of romcom feel on my covers along with like a light airiness. So if you might like test that I like to do is I go onto my Amazon page and I look at all of my books, all lined up and I will click through them and I'm like, yep. They all kind of look within the same genre and the same element, you know, this is the Megan Quinn book. And so, they kind of all just meshed together. If you get further back, you'll see, oh...

Alessandra: She hadn't figured herself out then.

Meghan: Yeah, she's a little lost in this area. So, when it comes to my type of cover, for me, it's always a guy; that's kind of my brand at this point, and the picture can't be dark.

Alessandra: So, I’ve seen most of yours are bright images and bright colors.

Meghan: Yeah.

Alessandra: And then the title and everything else.

Meghan: Yeah. So when looking for a picture, it always has to be on the brighter side. I've had a custom shoot done once and it was dark and it just gave me the like inks to feel. Whereas, my books are a little bit lighter, I mean, yes, there's like the breakup is my favorite part, and so there'll be inks in the breakup time. But for the most part of the book, it’s just like fun light-hearted, and so I can't have a dark image. So that would be like my first thing is a guy and then making sure the picture has the kind of correct lighting. Because sometimes like even when you buy a picture and you give it to your cover designer, they're like, I can't really work with the arty, like instilled filters in this. So if you get the wrong picture to start with, like the cover designer can't do much for it.

Alessandra: And one thing just to really quickly touch on the cover lab, so if you're not familiar with the cover lab, thecoverlab.com is brand new website have launch within the last month, and you can buy exclusive photos on there. And one of the really cool things that I like is you can buy multiple photos from that shoot. So I know you and I were chatting about this a while ago and you were like, because with a lot of your teaser you'll use images, that's the same guy that's on the cover. And that's another thing that if you're looking at images and if you are able to do exclusive photos, that's something that I like to look for is other images in that set, so you can have some flexibility and variety in your marketing and it's not just the same cover photo.

Meghan: Yeah. It's so important to me to have those. Like, even if it's one or two extra photos, it's so important because when you're doing marketing, when you're doing your Facebook ads, you can kind of see which picture is going to work best. I recently did that with The Modern Gentlemen. And so I had one picture, I bought it two years ago and I never used it. And I was like, I have to have this. I had the one picture and I was like, "Oh no," like I don't have any marketing materials. And like, usually you can kind of get away with it, but my model was fringy. He was so distinctive of his like beard, and his hair; I was like, what am I going to do? And so I contacted him.

Alessandra: Get some facial shots, yeah because if it doesn't have the beard.

Meghan: Exactly. And so I contacted him and he actually had some extra ones that he sold me for just marketing purposes. But yeah, having something like if you can, having those marketing photos are so clutch.

Alessandra: And I'm seeing the Facebook comments come in. If you guys have any questions pop them in there and if we have time at the end, then we'll hit those questions, but hey, to all of you. So I thought we'd mix it up and show our most powerful covers in terms of effecting sales because the cover can definitely be one of the biggest things that can push your book or kill your book. So for me, my very first book was really, I think the only reason anyone knows who Alessandra Torre is because of my first book and the cover of my first book. So I'm going to show it. I'm not doing lie, it's super scandalous. People will get really offended by this cover, so if you're easily offended look away. Right now, everyone of course is not looking away. Like, I honestly did not think this was scandalous, but my mother-in-law really did. This is blindfolded Innocence. And when this was pitched to publishers, they called it the crotch shop. So that when... so I went to auction as the crotch shop, but this cover was clicked on like a machine. Like, it was clicked on like crazy and people bought it strictly because of this cover. And then my other, since we can't all have a crotch on our cover, especially...

Meghan: I don't think it's allowed anymore.

Alessandra: Definitely not. It was banned, but it was like before Amazon knew about banning, so they were like, what do we do with this? Let's admit something about banning. But this was a custom shoot I did, and this was Black Lies. And I just really love how the light is like on her butt, like her showing his hand grabbing it. And this cover, I think really did set up this book and catch attention and gave the right feel that I wanted, which was angsty and because the dark angsty, but also really sexual and passionate.

Meghan: What I love about that photo is that you there's action in it. So it's just not necessarily like a post, but the way that his fingers curve in, that indent that you can see in her skin; that's movement and movement tells a story. And so that's a great picture. Great, fine. Just for that reason alone.

Alessandra: Thank you. And we went through like that shoot had 600 photos, I think, you know, and that was finally like we zoomed in on one image and that was it. Did you have an example of stuff?

Meghan: So before I started doing custom shoots, I was using stock photos and they did me well for a very long time, but I was kind of wanting to, like, I felt like I was plateauing and I was like, let me see what happens if I put in that little bit of extra money, invest in myself, and do something a little bit different, and I did a custom shoot. And how I got those model, I have no idea, but like I even told my friends and they're like, okay, good luck, Meghan. But I was obsessed with Devin Paisley. Like...

Alessandra: I don't know who that is. Is he an Instagram model or what is he?

Meghan: Did you read Thoughtless by S.C. Stephens?

Alessandra: Yes.

Meghan: Okay. So people were like Devin Paisley is killing Kyle.

Alessandra: Okay.

Meghan: So I contacted a guy. This is what trolling Instagram does. I went to him, like I tried contacting Devin and he wanted nothing to do with me. And so then I went through his photos... I went through his photos and found a photographer that he worked with. I contacted the photographer and said, "Hey, I see that you've worked with Devin." And I don't know what he must've said to him, but he was able to do it. And so this was my breakout. So I had like...

Alessandra: So you bought a photo from the photographer or you got the photographer to do a custom shoot with Devin for your cover?

Meghan: I got the photographer to do a custom shoot with Devin, which if you guys ever do that, have him sign a contract because he did sell the pictures from my custom shoot to another author.

Alessandra: Oh my gosh.

Meghan: And I was like... it was okay. But this literally, it skyrocketed my career to like three times month worth. I have never seen anything like that before in my entire life. And I was like, what are we doing?

Alessandra: From now on, I'm doing custom photos.

Meghan: So the next one that I would say, because like custom photo shoots, you can kind of go depends on how it works. And you're talking with a photographer and you're like, you know, they're sending you pictures and you're like, yes, this guy's perfect. And then later on, you get catfished and it's not the same guy that's on all the pictures. And you end up with this custom photo shoot of like 50 pictures to pick from, and there's one that could possibly be good, and that was Boss Man Bridegroom. Kind of like an example of how maybe a custom shoot could almost go wrong. And I've had some other ones that I won't speak of that like I didn't even use because I was like, I can't, that's not going to work with me. But the next one that I would say like took me to the next level was The Locker room. And I just think like the title, there we go. Everything's so opposite. The title … Thank you, The fact how like he's holding the baseball bat, so you know it's sports romance, the title gives you sports romance. Oh sorry. And I mean, everyone likes a shirtless guy, but key is cover those nips Alessandra, cover those nips.

Alessandra: What, cover the male nipple?

Meghan: Yeah. Yeah.

Alessandra: Why? Because of Amazon.

Meghan: I also work with Montlake. I published three books with them. I have two coming out next year and their biggest thing is they're always like Meghan cover the nipple. Cover the nipple and you'll get way more visibility packaging with like ads and stuff. And so they're like always covered the nipple, so when you see my books...

Alessandra: That's so interesting, you see, great tip and I'm going to put that bold in the blog posts, cover the nipple.

Meghan: Well, they say...

Alessandra: I think you were like, Alessandra, I'm like, what? Like, my...

Meghan: No, it was they cover the nipple and the Adonis belt if need be.

Alessandra: The Adonis belt is the Vs.

Meghan: The Vs, yeah

Alessandra: The Vs are bad?

Meghan: Apparently.

Alessandra: Vs are good.

Meghan: I mean, I felt like that's what Montlake their rules and guidelines are. And they, like, when I first started out with them, they were like, if you can do this like with your covers moving forward, then they can like do more packaging and you know, it'll be better for you in the long run. And so, I was like, all right, let's do it. And so you got to be tricky with the titles because like he's still naked, but you don't see nipple, so it works.

Alessandra: Okay. So our quick tips for cover, no nipple...

Meghan: No nipple.

Alessandra: You want to make sure the lighting is right for whatever type of genre you're going for. And if you do, I always look for vertical images because sometimes like I had really awesome images, but there are horizontal, really hard, so you have to think about that crop.

Meghan: Unless you do like the wrap of the entire book.

Alessandra: That's a good point. Yeah, like a print wrap. But you still have to think about how it's going to look on ebook. What do you have any suggestions for like empty space? Like, does there need to be empty space in the image?

Meghan: I don't think so. I think like when you're perusing pictures, my biggest thing is you can't necessarily look at the picture and be like, "Oh no". You have to take your time. What I like to do is I take paper and I will, like if I'm the picture, I'll cover here, I'll cover here, I'll do different angles to see like, hey, maybe if I just do a side of the face.

Alessandra: It’s like a complete different guy if I cover one of his eyes.

Meghan: Yeah, if I cover part of his body, like a simple piece of paper can be so easy because you can look at an image and you can like, I don't know. But I am telling you right now, I have seen images where all you have to do is this, and it's a completely different person and it's super-hot. So you have to be willing to spend a little bit of time. If you see something that might catch your eye a little bit, put in the time, put in the work, try to figure out, Hey, if I put the title across here, would it work? If like, where would I put the name? Things like that; I think just spending time on like how you would crop it in placement, you would go very long, very far in your search.

Alessandra: That's a really good point because like getting back to this cover, like this image in itself, wasn't great. She was doing something weird with her face, but it was like, oh, like I love that hand. You know what I mean? And so it was like, let's zoom in there and see what we can do and then it became really cool.

Meghan: Yeah, exactly. If one little small thing can catch your eye in a photo, you can work with it. I mean, cover designers, crop everything out and also, they adds... if you have a good cover designer, they will add football pants, baseball pants, they will add a tank top...

Alessandra: They are amazing, yeah.

Meghan: The things I've seen, I'm like what?

Alessandra: It's so true. Like the cover of my Amazon... I have an Amazon Thomas and Mercer book that's coming out in this year, and it was a great image, but the girl is brunette and I was like, they're not going to change her hair color. But they changed the hair color. They like took just... like they combined four or five images together to create this like world that they were sitting in in this picture. And I was like, man, like, this is why you all aren't me and I write books, so yeah.

Meghan: I mean, I'll tell you one of my secrets that I do when it comes to my covers is obviously finding the right photo. But also, one of my favorite places to go is creative market. Have you been on creative market?

Alessandra: Yeah, but it's not like I've not fond images on it because I have bought an image on it before, so it's creativemarket.com for you guys who don't know, but I buy like fonts and weird stuff like that on it a lot.

Meghan: I don't go there necessarily for anything like that. I go there to get ideas. And so my covers are half/half, so they're half illustrated, half real person. So like for Boss Man Bridegroom, this is a great example. I found this wedding invitation on creative market, and this is about obviously a guy getting married. This cover is the exact wedding invitation, different colors, but I found the wedding invitation and I said, put him in the middle. And it's one of my favorite covers. This book as done amazing. But you can get so many great ideas going to Creative Market because you kind of see all these different, like the way that they do the fonts, they like make them all pretty and stuff. And you're like great combos, right? Like, great idea, like the font with this like dark theme, like you can get so many great ideas, just kind of perusing. And it's one of my favorite things to do. People might think I'm insane, but I mean, I get amazing ideas just from looking through everybody's font pictures.

Alessandra: And they have good photos, like, I got my cover for Tripping on Halo. This is one of my favorite covers. This book didn't really sell very well, but isn't that the cutest cover, like, it just makes me happy. She was a creative market girl and it was like four bucks. But when I say I spent 15 hours looking for this photo, like I spent easily 15 hours. And I wasn't like, it's so much easier to find girl photos than covers, which is one of the reasons why I like the cover lab because you got some smoking hot photos there. And yeah. So okay, so talking about where to find photos, like for you all who are looking for a cover photo; there's standard stock images sites, like I use deposit photo, but I don't normally use those for my cover photos, but they're good for like other elements that I add in. But there's Getty and Shutterstock and I'm trying to think if I'm missing any.

Meghan: Adobe, Adobe has stock images.

Alessandra: Five Star, yeah, Adobe images. But those are stock images, so if you're not familiar with stock images, that means anyone can buy that image. So if it's a great, awesome image, chances are, it's sold thousands of times and you will probably see it on someone's Facebook ad or on their teaser or on their cover.

Meghan: I think I have one right here actually, that's been on a few. That's one of my older ones. It's kind of distorted a little bit because the story is you can't really like tell, but...

Alessandra: Oh, I can't tell what I'm looking at. Yeah, Oh, I see. Yeah, that's for like, yeah.

Meghan: Yeah, so like these were stock images and I've seen them on like a few, but we kind of distorted them enough. This is my first series ever, so try to like make them as different as possible.

Alessandra: Yeah. If that's how your budget allows, like you can still have a great cover through stock images. But it's just, like you said, try to like this, like this image is not... even though like someone is, like I saw her on an ad for toothpaste or something like that, but it was like an ad for insurance or something like that. And I'm like, yeah, but you know, my cover designer made this unique enough with the background and things like that. So that's one option, that's stock images. You can do a custom shoot, which quick tips for custom shoots. Like Meghan said, you can easily catfish. I've done the same. A photographer sent me images of a girl's like, she's beautiful. She's great. She showed up and she had tattoos like all over. I have nothing against tattoos, but this character in this book did not have tattoos and was like this innocent church going child and put her on the cover half naked with tattoos everywhere. We had to do like massive Photoshopping to try to get them all out. But I also just, if you're not at the shoot... custom shoots get expensive very quickly because you're paying the model, you're paying the photographer. You're often paying two models and then rarely you need to be there, so a lot of times you're paying for your own travel. Because you can tell the photographer as much as you want what you want and the field that you want, but you're not there, like you don't notice like the tag of the guy's shirt just hanging out.

Meghan: Exactly. Yeah, I had a few custom shoots where I've been lucky, luckily enough I've been able to be there. And the things that I was like, "Hey, hold on, wait, are you looking at this because, Oh, how come you're not paying attention?"

Alessandra: I guess they're looking at light and everything else, but also, I want a specific pose, you know, and something that feels real and has every pose in the world except for that pose, you know? Or the same, like a lot of... photographers will take a lot of horizontal photos and I really want them to take a lot of vertical photos so I have to work with. And then in addition to custom, you have exclusive photos. So exclusive photos is a world you're very familiar with. So can you talk a little bit about what an exclusive photo is, what you should look for? Is there a contract you have to sign and things like that?

Meghan: So to touch upon costume shoots real quick, because that's what I have been doing for, Ooh, I don't know, two, three years. So in order to find those, like, unless you want to use, sometimes there's photographers that are in the industry that are amazing, but they use the same model sometimes. And so, you have the same cover model as someone else's. And like recently there was one like came out on like four different covers at the same time, yeah.

Alessandra: I remember there was one where like, they were all in the same field. I was like, okay, these are different images, but they all look the same.

Meghan: It can be like, those photos are amazing. I've seen some amazing ones, but you kind of have to be specific. And so like for my custom shoots, I have done... I've trolled Instagram for so long, so many, so many hours. And I will like take screenshots and I'll get 15 guys who I think will work and I'll message all of the guys. And then none of them will return will return the message, and I'm like...

Alessandra: Do you search just an area like in Seattle or something?

Meghan: So, no, I got lucky somehow because for Diary of a Bad Boy, I can grab it real quick. So this was a custom shoot that I did in New York city. And all I typed in was Irish model on Instagram and he hashtags himself Irish model. And it worked out because I have a photographer that I work with in New York city and she's amazing. And it just like all kind of came together. But then, like for The Trade which of course, let me just find that real quick. The Trade, it took me like same baseball series. It took me three months, three months from point of contact to actually securing the photo shoot to get this guy. And so, like when you don't have three months, it's like, so just kind of depends on like what you're doing. But yeah, this was like, I mean, I love him and that's why I stuck with it because I was like, I really need him on the cover. I had to deal with the photographer, I had to deal with his agent. I had to deal with the model. It was just, and I had to pay the agent. I had to pay the model. I had to pay the photographer. It wasn't like the agent took a cut of what the model got. There's like so much more that goes into it that like, if you're just kind of walking in, never doing it before, it can be very overwhelming. But I love them. I love doing custom shoots even if sometimes they get catfished. So the Cover Lab technically, I'm, you know, part of a bunch of author groups and just dealing with how I get cover photos, you just hear, you know, throughout the grapevine, "I can't find anything. This isn't working for me. Oh, like I spent hours trying to look for something and I just can't find it." And I was like, wouldn't it be so easy if we had a place where there was exclusive photos for authors to use and it's so exclusive means no one else is going to use that photo ever. So your stock photo that works great. Like, it's amazing, but like you could do an exclusive photo where no one else would use it and it'd be something special. And I like to always say like make a little money and invest in yourself. Like, maybe don't invest in the coffee that you want. I know it's like, so like small, but like all the coffee that you get, like leading up through a month, like maybe save those. Save up a little bit and invest like a little bit money back into your business and yourself. And I was like, this needs to be done. Like, something needs to give people more of an option. And so, I told my wife and she was like, "Meghan, we have two kids under four and you really want to do this." And they said, yes, I do

Alessandra: And you write eight or nine books a year, if not 10.

Meghan: Yeah. Writing, releasing, writing releasing, writing, releasing, let's put this in. Honestly, like we don't really on our end, like we're not making money really. Like it's more of, I wanted to do something to help the author community, to help my friends, to help people buy an exclusive photo that maybe they wouldn't have bought before or like have their first exclusive photo. Because I remember when I had my first one, I was like giddy. I spent so much money on it and I was nervous, but I was like, this is my photo. This is my cover. No one else is going to have it. And so I wanted to kind of do something like that for the community and give people other options. And on the other end of it, photographers, there are so many photographers out there who can't get into the author community because they don't know how to. And so, when you spent...

Alessandra: It's really just right now before the Cover Lab came out, I mean it was just like word of mouth. Like if I was a photographer who had a bunch of amazing photos, unless I'm individually reaching out to authors one by one and saying, "Hey, check out my portfolio". I mean, how would anyone find me, you know?

Meghan: Exactly. And like, unless you're hashtagging properly on Instagram, no one's going to find you. And like, even like that, like some of the hashtags, there's so many like within...

Alessandra: But, it isn’t like authors are looking at hashtags, like I normally don't because I don't view Instagram as a marketplace, you know what I'm saying? So I would do it for ideas maybe, but I wouldn't know to look for images for sale.

Meghan: You have to like use the right hashtags, and it can be tiresome. And even when I was looking for models and photographers, it just got so painful at times and I would have to like step away. But when we first started, we wanted to have a shop where you go, and you search out your item that you're looking for. So like baseball guy, and it comes up with all the things, all the searches that could pertain to baseball guy, don't type in baseball guy, you could just type in baseball.

Alessandra: Break the system.

Meghan: And the picture will come up. And it's as simple as liking the picture, adding it to your cart, purchase, and it's emailed directly to you. All images through a zip drive. It's painless. I mean, if anything, you're going to have a little bit of fun because you're just looking at hot guys the whole time. But I just wanted something that wasn't painful for, you know, whatever. And we started getting submissions and it was really exciting. I bought a submission before it was even put on.

Alessandra: That's not fair, you're like grabbing all the good stuff.

Meghan: Hashtag first dibs. But yeah, you know, I just wanted something super simple, something that can be exclusive. For authors contract-wise, there's the end-user agreement and you have to agree to it before you purchase. And so, it's one of those things where people are like terms and conditions, click and they're good to go. But I suggest that you do read it because it does say things like, you know, one photo, like the photo has to be used for a book cover, you know English right's only. So if you get picked up by a foreign publisher, this was to help our photographers lower the prices. So if you're picked up by a foreign photographer or publisher and the publisher wants to use that picture, then they would have to contact the photographer again. So just like there's been a lot of give and take, trying to find that fine line between helping out authors and making sure that photographers are protected as well, because these are images that are theirs and they're selling. And you know, I will be honest when we first came out, we don't price anything, so that's completely up to the photographers and we put a price cap. And we were putting in the prices, then it was like stuff; these are pricey. Like, I've never paid that much. And so we did a survey after like the first weekend, and everyone was like, prices are too high, prices are too high. And I was like, well, I just, so you know, I'm not pricing them. I'm not trying to price gouge you. And so I had an honest conversation...

Alessandra: To talk about the pricing?

Meghan: I had an honest conversation with the photographers, the ones that we've been working with so far, and I said, hey, here are the survey results. This is what our authors are looking for. And a lot of them, almost all of them have lowered their prices and to a much affordable rate. There's packages... after the survey results, I was like, oh, this is good. Like, I feel really good about it. And so we've gotten such great positive feedback, and we have about 10 or 12 photographers that are submitting and we're waiting for like them to sign contracts with model release forms and all that different stuff. So we have so many more pictures coming and I'm super excited and we're continuing to grow. And our biggest thing is finding couples because everyone wants couples, but it's hard right now because photographers are using their archive because they can't shoot right now with all their restrictions. And so, they're like, once we don't have restrictions anymore, like I give them a list.

Alessandra: Someone asked if you also had images with people of color.

Meghan: So we have one guy, this is just awful to say like my kids are African-American and I just hate saying we have one guy. We have one so far on the website, well two, we have two, we just got another one in and he's amazing. But when we sent out the survey results, we have like five bullet points and number three with diversity, means that we want diversity, please, you know, work on that. Because there's many diverse characters as you can, models characters, what so ever. And couples was another really big, one men with clothes…

Alessandra: Who would have thought?

Meghan: That was a big one. And like I said, because there's some guys in their underwear, you know, like here's your underwear picture. And then others, like, I can't use that. Don't forget you guys, you can just move it around or find a good cover designer who will slap some pants on there because it does happen.

Alessandra: And Jaylin asked, are these photos of people or are some of children or scenery? It's really focused on male models right now, tut there will be couples and there would be oh, ahh single women or they're going to be single women?

Meghan: So I was nervous to open it up to women just yet, because I did not because it's so easy, right. Finding women models are so easy and I didn't want them being flooded.

Alessandra: But it is true, like I put women on my covers basically because it's super easy to find a great photo of a woman, you know? Yeah.

Meghan: So, so simple, and so at some point we will. And we did open it up to... everything is, so if you're like have a set budget of what you think you can spend, everything is divvied out, divided up by budget. So when you go to the website, the tabs at the top are all by budget so that you can be like, Oh, like I have a thousand dollars. Let me just go to that section and see what there is. We also added a top model section. So for those of you were looking for someone need to be a little bit more popular, you can go to the top model section. There's no price cap with that, but we just got some guy, his name is Sergio. I'm not supposed to really use their name, but...

Alessandra: Nobody heard that, right, yeah.

Meghan: He has a million followers on Instagram.

Alessandra: Wow.

Meghan: And he just dropped his prices down to 1600, I think, and he was at like 2000 or something. So it just depends on, you know, what the photographers and models agree upon and they'll put the price up there, but there's some really great bargains. There's amazing pictures. My biggest goal right now is to find couples and to diversify what we have going on. And then obviously, I'd love to see more sports romance photos up. But yeah, we're working and we're growing and we've been open for I think three weeks. And so, the fact that...

Alessandra: I love that it's super clean. Like, I feel comfortable. If you've ever tried to buy an exclusive photo, normally it's like, you reach out to the photographer, and none of them have prices typically. So you're like, how much is this? And then I'm always, Oh, they're pricing, they're giving me a higher quote than someone else. Right? Like, I have this built in distrust, so I like that I can go and I can peruse without having to go back and go, "Oh, I'm sorry, that's too much for me." And then they'll go, "Well, what do you want to pay?" And then I'm like stressed out about the negotiation process. So I really love that I can just buy it instantly and know that I have it. Or someone made a comment. They said "love the site, I already need a favorite button or a folder to put my favorites in.” That's a good idea.

Meghan: Yeah, there's another comment. Someone said if you can search by like newest too...

Alessandra: That's a good idea, to keep in checking it weekly.

Meghan: Yeah, I think that's yeah, we update almost every day. We're submitting new photos, which I do... like a few things real quick. So every model has to sign a release form. So the photos do not go up on our website without a model release form and a photographer agreement. Because I had an author ask once like how do I know I'm protected? And we have done all the work for you, so anything that you buy on the website, it is signed off on and you don't have to worry about being sued.

Meghan: That they really own it.

Meghan: Exactly. Oh, and there was one more thing I was going to say and now I can't remember. Oh, some people have asked "Hey, I bought this photo, who's the model and photographer?" Or they'll say like, why don't you have model photographer names on the website? And we spent, I would say two months with very expensive lawyers. And they said it would be a violation of privacy laws, so we can't, we can't put their names up there unless they specifically tell us to. And so like, no one have told us, but like the information... or no, that's not true. Like if you buy a photo and the photographer has said like, "Hey, I want credit". Then within your zip drive, you get credit from, it'll say please give credit to so-and-so and then you can do that. But yeah, that has been one of the things is like, how do I know like, give me a list of photographer names. And I was like, no, violation laws.

Alessandra: Yeah, I think I saw a post about that. That's interesting because I always wonder. Sometimes when you see cover reveals, it does credit the photographer and sometimes it doesn't. I always forget that, like, it's hard for me just to remember to credit the cover designer, just silly, but it's just like, that's just not top of mind when I'm creating my...

Meghan: When you're promoting, yeah. I just though… but then I just did a cover reveal yesterday, the photographer in the contract says to tag her in the posts. And so, kind of just, you know, go along with whatever's told you to be done.

Alessandra: So when you said the cover, the image like needs to be used on a cover based, you know, does that mean you cannot use that image on a teaser?

Meghan: No. So, it says on a book cover marketing and marketing related to that book.

Alessandra: Oh, so you can't just put it on a t-shirt, right.

Meghan: Exactly. You can't go and like yes, put it on a t-shirt.

Alessandra: Makes perfect. Okay. Perfect. Like if my book hits the New York Times lists for 14 weeks in a row and I sell 5 million copies, is there a limit to how many copies?

Meghan: No, it's unlimited and it's unlimited English worldwide rights. So we had to add the English in there because some of the photographers are like, we're just giving away these photos and I can understand like it's their craft and it's their picture. And so when we added the English, a lot of photographers felt very comfortable with that because I explained to them, when you upload a book to Amazon, they put it on all their sister sites and like, you can't change it. So I can't say...

Alessandra: You don't even have the option of doing different photographer rights .

Meghan: Exactly. I said, literally can't change it, and so we have to give them worldwide rights so that the books all sell on, you know, in Germany and all that different stuff. And so, putting an English worldwide rights made things a lot easier. So yeah, you can sell as many books as you want unlimited, but it just, if you get picked up by a foreign publisher, you just have to contact.

Alessandra: So if you get picked up by a publisher, do you reach out to the Cover Lab or do you reach out to...?

Meghan: Yeah. You can reach out to us and then we'll hook you up with whatever you need.

Alessandra: Okay. Perfect. All right, is there anything you want to add before we sign off?

Meghan: I don't think so. I think that's it.

Alessandra: We did a great job. I think we covered everything on my to-do list. And so, I have "cover the nipple" in giant letters underlined.

Meghan: Yeah, that's my favorite.

Alessandra: I'm sorry we didn't get to everyone's questions, but it's already been 45 minutes. So I'm going to try to keep this video short as I can so I can post it online. But I thank you all for coming and thank you, Megan, for joining us and talking about covers and the Cover Lab. I'm super excited. I'm saving my pennies. I've always been an incredible cheapskate, but you know when you look at the top 100, that's what you see, you see, you know, high quality photos.

Meghan: Yeah, it's all about reinvesting in yourself. And I worked two jobs, like a regular full-time job, and then I also was doing author stuff at night and I always stay up till midnight sometimes just trying to do what I needed to do. And I didn't quit my job until three years later when I was like, okay, like we can, like, I feel okay, because I kept reinvesting in myself and making sure that I could keep going up to the next level and to the next level.

Alessandra: Yeah, I think that was really smart. And I remember watching you do that and yeah, you have this slow, steady growth. Like, it wasn't overnight. You weren't, you know, I mean you worked your butt off.

Meghan: Yeah, I'm pulling a marathon. It's been a marathon. It's still a marathon and it's never been a sprint for me.

Alessandra: That's great. That's the way to do it. So, thank you guys, and thank you, Megan. I appreciate it. We’ll see you all online.

Meghan: Thank you. Sounds good.