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Cultura Creative (RF) / Alamy

Choosing the perfect image for your book cover

To celebrate this year’s annual London Book Fair we’ve created a gallery of inspiring images that would work perfectly on a book cover.

There are no rules when it comes to picking an image for your book cover, but after speaking to our sales team, we’ve put together a few tips for anyone new to image buying.

Think about…

• Is your image creative or unique?
• Does it evoke emotion?
• Does it begin to tell the story and give the reader an idea of what to expect from your book?
• Do you need a few images for your cover to get exactly what you want? Designers often grab elements from different images instead of compromising on the final look.

We’ve put together a selection of some of the most popular book genres from the last year, and some great image ideas for each of them. Click on the genre to take a look at mood boards hand curated by our Director of Photography Alex Bortkiewicz.

1. Crime and Thriller

Crime and Thriller
© Trigger Image / © stephen Mulcahey / © mupix

2. Food & Drink

Food and drink
© The Picture Pantry / © PhotoAlto sas / © Tim Gainey

3. Romance

romance
© Trigger Image / © Cultura RM / © Adrian Limani

4. Fantasy

fantasy
© UrbanZone / © Elena Ray / © Trigger Image

5. History

history
© The Art Archive / © Everett Collection Inc / © World History Archive

6. Chick Lit

chick lit
© conmare GmbH / © RooM the Agency / © Robyn Neild

You can see more awesome book cover ideas in our category.