Use These Websites For Free Pictures To Promote Your Romance Book!

Written By Hailey Frost

Promoting your romance book is already hard enough – and finding pictures that match your books vibe and your vision can feel like an even bigger challenge. Add in the need to find legal and free images for book marketing, and the ethical issues surrounding AI, and it can quickly become overwhelming.

Luckily, there are websites that offer free stock images that you can use to promote your romance book across platforms like social media, blogs, and email newsletters.

Here are the most useful websites where you can find high quality images you can use for your romance book promotion and some tips and tricks to navigate them and find the perfect images for your book marketing!

 

Some Things To Consider When Using Free Images for Romance Book Marketing

Before diving into these free stock photo sites, it's important to note that not every image is free to use for commercial purposes like promoting your romance book. Please note that I am not a legal advisor, so I urge you to do your own research regarding the legality of pictures you are using for your marketing, but here are some things to keep in mind:

1.       Brands: You are not allowed to use pictures showing a brand or logo for marketing without the brands permission.

2.       Celebrities: Many images featuring celebrities are labeled "for editorial use only," which means you cannot use them for marketing your romance book.

All of the following license terms are as of 09/28/2024.

Best Free Image Websites for Romance Book Promotion 

Unsplash

Unsplash is one of the most popular platforms for free stock photos. An incredibly talented community of photographers share their works under a license that allows you to use their images for personal, and commercial purposes, such as your romance author website, social media posts or newsletters. They do have a paid program called Unsplash+, but you can filter those out and still find a lot of great images for free!

Key License Takeaway: While attribution is appreciated, it is not mandatory in order to use the pictures. However, you cannot sell the pictures without major modification (e.g. using them as romance book covers and only putting a title over the image would likely be too little modification).

My Tip:

Personally, I prefer browsing public collections for my search keywords instead of the search result pictures since they provide a nicer range as they have been curated by other users.

 

Depositphotos

While Depositphotos is primarily a paid stock photo site, they do have a filter for free images that you can use under their standard license. Simply replace the ‘All Images’ standard setting for the search with “Free” via the dropdown.

Their standard license covers unlimited promotional use for social media, websites and blogs. However, if you plan to use these as images for your book covers, their standard license only covers up to 500.000 copies, before you will either have to change your cover or purchase the extended license.

Key License Takeaway: You can use the free images for your romance book marketing, but make sure to monitor how many paperbacks you sell if you use them as book covers.

My Tip:

Appsumo runs an amazing sale on Depositphotos every year around Black Friday and May, where you can get 100 images for only 39 USD. It’s the perfect opportunity to stock up on credits to use pictures for your promotion all year around. The photo credits also don’t expire, so no worries if it takes you longer to pick your pictures.

 

Pexels

Pexels offers free photos, videos and vectors. While it does not have the best photo selection for romance book promotion of all these sites, it has free video content you can use for romance book trailers and Instagram reels and TikToks.

Pexels has the option to donate to creators, but doesn’t require attribution should you use their pictures. However they do have a few more rules you might have to consider before using them for your marketing:

Key License Takeaway: You can use pictures and videos for your book marketing, but certain restrictions apply.

Pixabay

Pixabay offers a variety of media you can use for book promotion. Aside from pictures, you can also find vectors, videos, GIFs and sounds to use for your romance book marketing.

Just make sure that none of the following conditions from their licensing agreement apply and make sure no brands or logos are visible in your TikToks or Reels.

Key License Takeaway: Use content without attribution for your romance book promotion, unless it contains trademarks, logos or brands and certain other restrictions.

Dupephotos

Dupephotos are the perfect site if you’re looking for day-to-day and candid style images. While Pexels, Unsplash and Depositphotos gear more towards photographers sharing their posed and edited work, Dupephotos has images and videos that are more day-to-day-life.

Since the site is still realtively new, you might have to spend a bit of time searching for the kind of pictures you’re looking for. However, I find that if you scroll, you are likely to find pictures you didn’t even know you wanted for your romance book marketing.

Key License Takeaway: You can use these images for commercial purposes without needing approval or attribution.

Do Not Use Pinterest Pictures For Your Book Marketing!

Pinterest is often mistaken as a source for stock photos, but it’s actually a social media platform. Using Pinterest images in your marketing could open you up to legal risk, as most images are protected by copyright. Stick to licensed images from the websites mentioned above to be on the safe side!

No time to wade through stock photo sites to find pictures that fit your book? Contact me for social media content creation!

Hailey Frost
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