Learning, Book Covers

I love learning the art of anything, whether it’s cycling, or writing, or photography. Or keeping yourself out of the downward spiral of litigation. And of course, when I learn things, I feel obliged to share. One thing I learned recently is that many lawyers dislike law suits as much as their clients. Apparently they dream of a better job. The other thing I learned recently is that it can be a long process to put together a book cover. You want it to be relevant to the book. You want it to catch the eye of the book buyer. You want it to be free of any copyrighted content such as a photo that came from an unreliable source. I learned that there are photographers out there who put their photos on the infonet without any indication of copyright (are they not legally obligated to do so?) and wait to catch someone using it—then they sue the user. Fortunately, I didn’t learn this the hard way, and hopefully you won’t either. One way to ensure nothing will ruin your ride is if you take the photos yourself. Another is to find sites that release photos that are not sole property of any one person. Still another is to hire an artist to create the book cover for you, straight out of their imagination. Think of this knowledge as putting on the helmet before you go for that ride. Ride, and write, safely!