MY BAD

I woke up yesterday to find out about Trestle Press getting into a lot of trouble over cover art obtained without the artist's permission. So regardless of the fact that I was almost 100% percent certain my e-book cover art--which I either designed on my own, hired a designer for, or let my publisher do all the voodoo magic for it--was on the up and up, my anxiety thermometer fired up until the mercury was shooting out because that's what I do.

Anyway, I'm glad I checked. I made a silly mistake on the Psychosomatic e-cover, and I'm going to own up to it and hopefully fix it.

I worked with a designer on the cover (I won't name him here unless he later tells me he's okay with it), but I still helped out with choosing photos. While the two guys on the cover were stock, as far as I know, I also believed the image of the nurse was a stock photo, too. I believe I tried to write the artist at the time (her email is in my gmail files) but was not able to get in touch. I've always gotten permission in the past for photos I've used for Plots with Guns.  But since it was my understanding that the photo was a stock photo, I thought it was okay to use.

In double-checking yesterday, I finally found it again and discovered I'd misunderstood what "stock" mean in this case. It was one of the Creative Commons photos, meaning I needed to attribute it to the artist, and that I couldn't use it for commercial use. Well, I'd messed up on both counts. And I feel pretty shitty about it.

As for the other image on the cover--the amputee--I have no idea where that one came from.

So I contacted the designer, apologized for this crap, and asked him to start working on a new cover featuring only images we have permission to use. I also contacted the artist for the original print version of the novel (JT Lindroos, who also designed my All the Young Warriors cover) and asked if I could temporarily use that for the e-book instead. He agreed, and so I've just now uploaded that version to the Kindle store (I think it might take a day to change).

And I'm also going to try once again to get in contact with the artist, explain what happened, and offer some compensation from the copies already sold.

I'm glad to have learned more about how this all works. I can only say it was a rookie mistake and I'm working to rectify it as we speak. 

Comments

[Elaine Ash]

Glad to see you addressing this head-on. My time in Hollywood, surrounded by litigious sharks, pounded the importance of copyright infringement into my head early. Now I have accounts with Getty Images and Dreamstime, and I pay for anything not clearly marked "free."