Reasons I Will Not Give Your Story a Chance

Covers and Images

Covers or Images that are Copyrighted

You have no idea how much this bugs me and I hate the cover feature overall. (1) QuoteV won't put your story in the list when people are searching and browsing stories without a cover image, which makes it harder for people to find your stories. QuoteV now allows stories to be published to the site index, so this point is now moot; however, (2), every site with a feature to have cover images for stories, people try and scramble around to find a picture to cobble together a cover image, using random pictures they downloaded from Google, screenshots of TV Shows, cartoon or anime, scan images straight from books, comics or manga, or, worse, get their pictures from DeviantArt or other image hosting websites (including Photobucket), and say all it's good.

No it is not.

Just as plagiarizing stories are horrible, so are using someone's picture without permission. The only reason I click on stories with cover images I recognize that doesn't belong to the writer is so I can directly link the story to the original artist and let them handle it themselves. That's it. I won't read the story because I think this is blatant disrespect.

No. Giving credit does not mean getting permission.

No. Just because you cropped or resized the picture, or used filters to alter the picture, doesn't mean it's transformative. You used a different lense. You didn't add onto the picture.

It's still copyright infringement.

If the artist did give the person permission and credit is given, then there's no problem with me. That's fine. You use images that are public domain, or is under a Creative Commons License with the appropriate attributions? That's also fine. You do everything you can to transform a copyrighted images to the point where it's virtually unrecognizable to the original, following the four points of fair use, and crediting the artist with the full attribution? Hard for me to say. I'm not a judge. It depends.

There are people out there who would also be willing to help you with making covers or images; although I would be careful on who you ask because I see people using copyrighted images in a non-transformative way and ignoring the clauses of fair use. If you do find someone that doesn't use copyrighted images, they are gold!

If you don't want to ask artists to make you pictures, and you're not exactly an artist yourself, there's still things you can do to make cover images:

1. There are sites such as banner.fotor.com/ that has easy templates and clip art that you can use for free (as long as it's not for commercial use). Please read the Terms of Service down at the bottom carefully before you use this site because it doesn't allow copyrighted images either.
2. DeviantArt has an entire section dedicated to stock images called the Resource & Stock Images in the far left column, and you can filter down to what you want even farther. That being said, most of these stock providers have rules when using their product. Please read them and give credit where credit is due. Sometimes the rules aren't on the product itself, but they're most probably on their profile pages or in one of their journal entries. Give them credit and send them a link so they can see your handiwork! And if you don't know how to use stock images, get GIMP or FireAlpaca (because they're free and they can do almost anything Photoshop can do) and check out www.tutorialking.eu/. And if you're not allowed to download GIMP or FireAlpaca, MS Paint or Microsoft Works Word or LibreOffice will do simple jobs just fine.
3. You can search on Google specifically for public domain images. Of course this isn't fool proof either if you search "public domain images," so you would have to do a little bit of searching for proof that it's under public domain, or at least creative commons, but you can also tell Google that you'd like to filter these images to make things easier for you. On the upper right corner, there will be a little icon with a gear. Those are your settings. Click on it, and then click on Advanced Search. Then, down to the bottom, there will be "usage rights" and a drop down list. Usage rights is highlighted, and if you click on it, it'll open up a page that will explain what these rights mean so your search is modified. Click on the "free to use, share, or modify," or "free to use, share, or modify even commercially," and you'll more than likely be safe. There could still be mistakes by Google, so a little more digging would be safer.
4. Pixabay is a site filled with images, gifs, and sound effects that are free to use (with credit, if required by the creator).
5. You can use a doll maker, or a scene maker, to use for your cover image as long as you are allowed to use it on other sites and you give credit. There's a specific avatar maker that is free to use www.rinmarugames.com/game/?game_i... is awesome, but, sadly, even though on Rinmaru's rinmaru.deviantart.com/ page it says "Share the characters/creations you made using my game on any website you would like as long as you give credit to the game and the artist," hardly anyone actually does give credit. She's already said publicly that you can use it almost however you want—short of selling the images for money, or posting it outside of the scraps folder, the least you could do is put a disclaimer in the footer and give credit.

If you didn't know anything about copyright infringement, and that it was possible for pictures posted online to be copyrighted (and all those other lame excuses), and that it included screenshots of shows, well, now you know.

Because the covers are so small anyway, I don't generally judge anyone's stories based on the cover images. This entire section also includes chapter/question/result images in stories, quizzes, polls, surveys, etc. Just usage of images in general.

Covers that depict self-harming.

For one, covers like this are not allowed (at least on every website I'm a member of). In most website's Terms of Service, there's usually a statement that says something like, "You may not transmit, submit or promote any Content visually depicting nudity, sexually explicit or suggestive material, or graphic violence."

Covers of people cutting themselves is considered violent. It may not be an injury inflicted by other people, but just as you can't have images of a horribly broken nose with blood running down the face, you can't show a limb with fresh bleeding cuts or words carved into them.

If you do cut, FanFictionNet, FictionPress, QuoteV, Wattpad, AO3, and these other writing sites are not the place to really get sound advice (and you may even run into people who would say "up the road, not across the street"). There are support groups dedicated to self-harmers, there are hotlines you can call, or, better yet, talk to a trusted adult about it such as a school counselor and your parents!

And finally, if you don't cut, and this book is about a character that does cut, why have a cover or title that focuses on just that one thing? Even if this is a story about recovery, healing, and finding a way to thrive in the world, there should be more to a character than he or she cuts, or is emo, or whatever. It screams stereotype to me. If I run across any stories that have these covers, I would click on it only to report it. I wouldn't read the story.

Do you have any thoughts or questions on what you just read?

Send me an email to let me know!