Scroll of Destiny

Coming next week on Amazon Kindle...



(Cover by Larafan)

HikerAngel wrote: Coming next week on Amazon Kindle...

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(Cover by Larafan)

I know this quasi-offtopic, but how do you arrange to use a photograph like that? Do you have to get a specific release from the woman pictured to show Amazon, or do they simply trust that you are using non-infringing art? And then it's your liability. 

You know the way I love to appropriate images for my stories. I don't see that as a problem for free stories used in a fan context, but once you get into commercial mode, as in Amazon, that's a different thing.

I'm considering publishing on Amazon, and art is something I haven't sorted out yet.

If I'm too far off-topic, you can drop me an email at shadar@mac.com . 

Tks... and looking forward to reading the story. 

Shadar

shadar wrote: I know this quasi-offtopic, but how do you arrange to use a photograph like that? Do you have to get a specific release from the woman pictured to show Amazon, or do they simply trust that you are using non-infringing art? And then it's your liability. 

You know the way I love to appropriate images for my stories. I don't see that as a problem for free stories used in a fan context, but once you get into commercial mode, as in Amazon, that's a different thing.

I'm considering publishing on Amazon, and art is something I haven't sorted out yet.

If I'm too far off-topic, you can drop me an email at shadar@mac.com . 

Tks... and looking forward to reading the story. 

Shadar

Larafan made the cover. I think he used a royalty-free stock photo for the cover. That's what I always do for my cover images on writing.com and booksie.com. The best sites I've found for royalty-free photos are pexels.com and pixabay.com. Just be sure that you're clicking a free image from the site rather than some of the "pay" stock image ads at the top and bottom of the page.

If you have any trouble or questions about the Amazon publishing thing, I'm not the most experienced person in the world, but I've managed to get through it and ironed out a few initial wrinkles. I'd be happy to help you through anything that's causing difficulty.

The thing that took me the longest originally was how to make the chapters work correctly when converting from Word to Kindle format with the Amazon app. You have to use the title/header formatting options in Word for it to convert correctly!

Thanks, ELF and HikerAngel. Sounds easy as long as I source my images correctly. Never realized there were caches of royalty-free images out there that one could use without going through legal hoops. Figured everything had at least a de facto copyright.

I always worry about some young lady seeing her tweaked image on a book that she may not endorse and suing me. 

Shadar

By the way, the reason I was confused was because I read this:

www.scarlettebooks.com/5-reasons-not-to-...-on-your-book-cover/

Shadar

Both of those two sites curate the photos, and their license is actually extremely user-friendly. They push responsibility back on the uploader rather than the users. Even if a photo is removed, their licenses continue to give usage rights to those who obtained it during the time it was available.

They do both say that copyrighted logos, images, etc. depicted in the photos aren't necessarily able to be used for commercial purposes without consent. Some of the images include consent forms from the models. On those, you can be relatively certain that it's okay (unless it's a forgery, I suppose, but I would think that would fall more on the photographer than on the users).

If the image doesn't have a release from the model, then it is possible to get into trouble, I suppose. Images that have been there for a longer period of time and from longtime contributing photographers are probably safer. If they haven't been removed after tens of thousands of downloads, it's probably unlikely that they will be trouble for you.

If you're really concerned about it, sticking to images with releases attached is probably the way to go. Or just pay for stock photos with releases.

There's a difference between free (you don't have to pay) and royalty-free (you only have to pay once). There are good reasons to be wary/careful with the former but the latter is fine as long as it's from a solid site with good licenses (Adobe, Depositphotos, Bigstock). The one caveat to that is erotica where you need to check your license and release very carefully if there's an identifiable person in the image. That's one reason why I switched to rendering images for my erotica instead of using stock.

The other downside to stock is if you find a good royalty-free image, there's just as much chance of another author finding it as well. I've seen one of the images I used on old book on two others since then.

Gincognifo wrote: There's a difference between free (you don't have to pay) and royalty-free (you only have to pay once). There are good reasons to be wary/careful with the former but the latter is fine as long as it's from a solid site with good licenses (Adobe, Depositphotos, Bigstock). The one caveat to that is erotica where you need to check your license and release very carefully if there's an identifiable person in the image. That's one reason why I switched to rendering images for my erotica instead of using stock.

The other downside to stock is if you find a good royalty-free image, there's just as much chance of another author finding it as well. I've seen one of the images I used on old book on two others since then.

Thank you so much for the tip!

If the book were offered in paperback as well as Kindle, would anyone order the physical version?

Thanks to all who have commented on this thread. I've learned a lot about what's safe with commercial publishing with images. 

I apologize for sort of hijacking the thread from "I'm publishing a cool story on Amazon that you might want to read" to "questions about how you use images in stories you post to Amazon", but hopefully ELF and HikerAngel will cut me some slack. 

I'm looking forward to actually buying and reading the Kindle version of the book next week when it's available. Which is what this thread was all about to start with. 

To the question about a hard copy book... I only buy Kindle versions of books these days. 

Shadar

Gincognifo wrote: There's a difference between free (you don't have to pay) and royalty-free (you only have to pay once). There are good reasons to be wary/careful with the former but the latter is fine as long as it's from a solid site with good licenses (Adobe, Depositphotos, Bigstock). The one caveat to that is erotica where you need to check your license and release very carefully if there's an identifiable person in the image. That's one reason why I switched to rendering images for my erotica instead of using stock.

The other downside to stock is if you find a good royalty-free image, there's just as much chance of another author finding it as well. I've seen one of the images I used on old book on two others since then.

Just as an aside, it goes the other way too.  Some sites (like Getty) will happily try to sell you a license for a free photo.  They tried to sell free images of the moon landing to my former company. (All the NASA moon images are free to use.)

They even threatened a photographer who donated all her images royalty free to the Smithsonian saying she needed to buy a license to her own photos!  Even after she donated them, she STILL own her own copyright, she just granted others permission to use them.   She sued them over it. (Except she lost in the end, as since they were "in the public domain" it was ok for getty to try to sell them to you.)

https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-getty-copyright-20160729-snap-story.html

But in general if you are going to a name-level royalty free image site you're _probably_ ok.  You might still want to read the license for acceptable use.

I worked for a company that did medical advertising and we couldn't use royalty free stock images because if you put someone in an ad for a medication (say Herpes medication) w/o a proper release they can sue you.  Even if the photographer thinks it's ok, the _model_ might not.  Being in the ad implies the person has the disease and they might not have agreed to that... 

We had a signed model release form for every image we used, specifying how we were going to use the image. Some had a date range and we'd have to go back later to get it renewed if we wanted to keep using the image.  And yes, we did that because someone sued over that exact thing and won (not my company) ....  (United States)

I would think that you'd be ok for a book cover though, esp since the book is fiction and it no person should confuse the image as saying something about the model on the cover.  OTH, I would have thought that true of an Ad too but ...

shadar wrote: I'm looking forward to actually buying and reading the Kindle version of the book next week when it's available. Which is what this thread was all about to start with. 

To the question about a hard copy book... I only buy Kindle versions of books these days. 

Shadar

I will only buy the kindle version too. If you post here, I'll buy immediately after seeing it.

I have too many books and only read on my kindle now.  

I only buy books under two conditions:

- it has pretty pictures  (comic book, graphic novel, art book, etc)
- If I do a kickstarter for a book I tend to get the physical book in that case to commemorate that I had something to do with it getting published (and usually my name is in the back).

Rule 1 is pretty much killing me, and at some point I might have to give up my obsession with physical comics....

Here’s the summary blurb for Amazon:

What if a scroll could fulfill your greatest fantasies? Money, fame, fortune, health... anything your heart desires!

Vaughn's heart desires his coworker, Destiny. And his secret fantasies revolve around Destiny becoming stronger, smarter, and sexier than she ever dreamed possible. As his relationship with Destiny deepens, Vaughn longs to tell her he was responsible for her changes. How will she react? But as Destiny becomes ever more breathtaking, Vaughn begins to wonder if his wish came with dire strings attached. Can their relationship survive her growing hunger for more?

When love squares off with superhuman powers, which will prove stronger?

The story is now live and available for purchase. You can read it for free if you have Kindle Unlimited or a Kindle device from the Kindle Lending Library.

www.amazon.com/dp/B085QKP7KJ

Dru1076 wrote: Here's a link for the Australian market...

www.amazon.com.au/dp/B085QKP7KJ/ref=mp_s...id=1583877933&sr=8-2

I'm really looking forward to reading this

Thank you so much, Dru! You rock!!!

If anyone who has read it would be so kind as to post a review of the book on Amazon, Larafan and I would be forever grateful. (And I’ll toss in a free advance copy of my next published novella... )

This was absolutely GREAT!  One of the best works in the genre.  It has a more complicated plot than I usually care for in my supergirl stories, but HikerAngel and LaraFan pull it off. It has some nice twists and the great action and sex appeal that HikerAngel and LaraFan are known for.

I signed up for KindleUnlimited specifically to read this and it was worth the time and effort. And there is a great opening for a sequel. 

Great story, HikerAngel!  I enjoyed every page.  I suppose the sequel will be left to the imagination... which is a pretty good place for it after all.  It's going to be amazing!

I'll add a review on Amazon.

Sweet!!! Thank you so much! Elf and I had fun writing it and may be starting on a new collaboration soon...

Out of curiosity, did you leave the ending open to leave it up to the readers imagination? Or are you actually planning to revisit Destiny?