Books often require art, whether it be to illustrate an idea or as a decoration. Education books in particular often use a lot of art; Vocabulary textbooks use illustrations to teach word meanings, grammar books use diagrams and art to illustrate grammar, and speaking or writing books ask students to describe a picture. However, art can be expensive, hiring an illustrator even more so. You also need to make sure that you have legal permission to use the image in your project.  Fortunately, there are a number of places to find art that you can use legally, and on a budget. However, they vary by quality, price, and diversity of art!

Why Do You Need Art?

Let’s start with what kinds of illustrations you might need. To figure that out, you need to think about the purpose of art in a book.

Some art, like a Picasso

or a Garfunkel

This is a hard question to answer philosophically, but fortunately, I mean it practically. The first step before figuring out where to get art is to think about what kinds of illustrations you need. Take some time to sit with your content, if you haven’t already, and note where you think illustrations are needed, what kind, and what you think they should look like. Think about points in your book where a picture might fill in details that you hadn’t thought to explain. Or where a concept is more easily grasped visually rather than through words.  You might also consider whether having a nice image would break up long pages of text and make the book look friendlier. Of course, how “friendly” the book should look depends on the genre.

If you’ve ever done any professional materials writing, you know that publishers often ask the author to create art briefs. An art brief is a description of an illustration, including format, size, and content that is inserted into the text where the illustration will go. If a lot of art is needed for a project, you might write ILLO1 in the text, then write the brief in a separate spreadsheet file.

I highly recommend you do this for your own illustrations for your self-published book, especially if you are going to have a lot of art. This is how I like to do it: Open a spreadsheet or a notebook, if you’re a paper-and-pencils kind of person and make a numbered list. I’d include the following headings.

• Illustration number. I like to use ILLO1, ILLO2, ILLO3 and so on.
• page number where the illustration will go.
• unit or chapter or section, because page numbers change.
• relevant context and purpose. Is this for an activity or is it meant to be a hero image at the top of the page or perhaps a decoration? Will any text go over it? Do students need to circle it or label it?
• a short name that helps you visualize what kind of image you want.
• a longer description, which can be as simple as “an open book” or a much longer description that includes a detailed description of a person, their clothes, facial expression, gestures, and so on.
• links to any reference images, images that help you visualize what you your illustration to look like OR links to actual images if you have already found ones you like.

You may not know all this information right away, so you can fill things out as you go along. You may want to write a full brief as you are writing the text, or leave brief notes and come back to them after the text is written. And remember, this is probably for your eyes-only so don’t sweat trying to make it sound perfect or professional! As long as you know what you want to say, you’re good! Make sure you are also labeling the text with the ILLO number in the correct spot!

Once you know what you want, there are a number of places to get images: free image websites including public domain sites, paid stock photo sites, hiring an illustrator, or doing it yourself. Each has advantages and disadvantages.m

Free Sites

There are a number of sites that offer images for free. I could spend all day listing every site that offers stock images for free, so I’ll limit myself to some that I have used in the past.

Unsplash has beautiful high-quality scenic photos, so they are great for decoration or mood. They also tend to look a little less like stock photos. No artificial smiles. No perfect clothes and makeup and poses straight from the textbook. The trade-off is that it’s hard to find specific things or scenes. If you’re doing a coursebook for beginners and need to illustrate fireman, teacher, construction worker, and farmer, you may be out of luck.

Pexels is a more viable Unsplash alternative, in my opinion. Pexels.com balances the kind of specificity you need in stock photos with a look that isn’t too polished.

The Noun Project features beautiful quality photos. What sets it apart is that it has more racial and gender diversity than most stock photo sites.

Nappy is another great site that focuses on Black and Brown people. The photos are also a little more natural looking. Still high-quality, but without that stock photo sheen.

Pixabay has a good variety of photos and, unlike other stock photo sites, also includes clip art and drawings, but the quality does vary. You’re more likely to find a specific picture of a specific thing, but there may not be much variety or choice.

Vecteezy is a good alternative to Pixabay because the quality is consistently higher and it includes digital images as well as photos.

I’ll also mention Icons8 which is a nice site for little icons and symbols. Who doesn’t need a good arrow to point at sidebars, or a symbol for a speaking activity, from time to time?

So what’s the catch?

Free sites do have a few issues. They don’t have a wide range of images so you won’t always find a very specific image. For example, you may need an illustration of a broiled chicken breast with a mushroom sauce on a blue plate. Or a fireman holding an axe in one hand and an entry tool in the other, with an oxygen mask hanging off his belt. And he needs to be turned so you can see the oxygen tank on his back. Those kinds of exact images are hard to find because photographers don’t get paid to upload images. So they don’t put up all their images!

For the same reason, a free website won’t have a series of photos with the same model or background. If you’re illustrating a story, you may need the same person in different contexts, doing specific actions. Stock photo sites, especially free ones, often have only one or two images with a particular model.

Another issue is repetition. A lot of photographers submit their art to all the free stock photo sites. And those sites are used by bloggers, social media accounts, and other self-publishers. So your reader may have seen some of these images before. Stale image look professional and the impact on the reader will be diluted.

Another thing to think about is consistency. Yes, I can find images of different kinds of food on a free site, but will the style be consistent? If you use photos with backgrounds in an activity or section, they should all have backgrounds. If you use isolated photos (no background or a plain white background), they should all be isolated. Mixing illustrations and photos, or hand-drawn and vector-drawn illustrations in the same place is also jarring.

Legal Issues

Beyond style considerations, there are also some serious legal issues to think about when using free stock photos. Honestly, these issues apply to any stock photo, but free sites are more prone to abuse, because, well, they’re free! Paid sites run by a reputable company are more likely to vet contributors or even make them pay a subscription fee. Scammers hate paying fees!

The first issue is that some contributors steal art and put them up on sites. Besides being immoral, using stolen images in a commercial work can open you up to being sued. I recommend a quick reverse image search to make sure that the image you download is found on stock photo sites under the same name and not on an artist site.

Second, a photographer does not necessarily own the rights to everything in an image. Any recognizable person, works of art, and some famous places have rights to their image. Models usually sign a release to the photographer to let it be used commercially. Any identifiable person in an image needs to have signed a release. And most celebrities will not sign a release. So no Beyoncé for you! Even public landmarks like the Eiffel Tower can be under copyright. So can brand images like a Mustang car or an Apple computer. And yes, people have been sued for using images that the photographer didn’t get releases for! So read and reread terms of license of a free site before using the images there, particularly images of identifiable people, places, or things. Of course, if you spend a lot of time on stock photo sites, you’ll notice professionals tend to avoid identifiable brands, locations, or products in their photos.

Public Domain Sites

Now there are some places to get some awesome images that are in the public domain! Public Domain means that either no one has copyright or the creator has released the images for unrestricted use. The US government releases to the public domain all intellectual property created by government employees for their jobs. So you can find a lot of historical images or photographs of items for free as well as scientific images! What is more, images (and texts) can go out of copyright after a certain period following the creator’s death, if no one else claims copyright. Every year, images an I recommend you go to official sites and search there instead of using a search engine like Google, so you can see the licensing information for yourself. Here are some of my favorites:

• The Smithsonian: Nineteen museums and twenty-one libraries covering a range of areas.
• The National Gallery: Some wonderful art and artifacts.
• The National Archives: Historical events and documents.
• The Library of Congress free images of historical events, documents, and photos of American life. You can also find scans of books from the archives.

There are three other reliable sources of public domain images or images that are free to share under Creative Commons Licenses. You do need to carefully read the licenses and any requirements in terms of commercial use (or lack thereof), attribution, and whether you can change the image or not.

• Creative Commons Openverse: A searchable archive of images creators choose to share.
• Flickr Commons: a project to make it easier to find photos in public archives.
• Wikimedia: Designed to support Wikipedia, it’s a good collection of illustrative images as well as historical images. My go-to source for locations and portraits of specific people. Carefully read the licenses, though, as many of the people who share images require credit, or explicitly ban commercial use.
• Public Domain Image Archive: A regularly updated database of images in the public domain

Paid Stock Photo and Illustration Sites

Stock photo sites that sell images have a lot of advantages over the free sites. They are less likely to use stolen images or images that lack proper vetting or licensing permissions. There are also a wider range of images with more diversity. That includes the same model in multiple images doing different things. Or multiple photos of a scene like an office or a classroom, with variations every time, making it easier to find exactly what you want. The downside is that the images cost money!

Stock photo sites usually charge in one of two ways: subscriptions or per-image. The charges per image is often much more expensive and rarely worth it unless you need just one image! The subscription is a better value. Remember that it’s good to have images for social media and your website too! When comparing subscription plans lok at the price-per-image and the duration. Monthly plans make you pay every month. Some have limits on how many images you can download in that month but others do not. “Unlimited” plans have a set number of images to download but the time period is unlimited (or sometimes several years long).  If you’re looking for images for a book and you know exactly what you want, you could join for a month, download all the images you need, and then unsubscribe!

Most stock photo sites also let you download free, watermarked versions of the image. That lets you see if the image works in context before buying it Just don’t forget to actually buy the image because leaving the watermark in place looks unprofessional. And remember, that you’re out there as an indie creator trying to get people to buy your words. So you should support other indie creators by buying their images!

One of my favorite sites, Depositphotos (referral link), has a wide range of art, illustrations, and icons as well as photos. Depositphotos also offers flat-fee plans that I think are well-worth the money. You pay a set amount upfront and get access to a set number of images with no time limit, usually 100 images for $100. They also often do promotions and sales, which are worth checking out. You may not need 100 images for your book, but you can use them for the next book, or your blog, social media, teaching materials, or presentations.

Adobestock is another great resource. Because it’s part of the Adobe platform, you can import images to your InDesign library. In addition to photos and illustrations, Adobestock also has templates for published materials and websites, which are useful.

Shutterstock is a third popular option and the one that is most used by the publishers that I have worked with! So you can have the exact same images the publishers have.

DIY Images

If you need a diagram or quick sketch, you can sometimes do the illustrations yourself. Diagrams and tables are easy to make. You can also use a digital tool like Canva or your PC’s built-in illustration tool to make simple diagrams. You can even draw one yourself and scan it in, without too much artistic talent required. And I believe that the world needs more diagrams. When I read a teacher activity book, I find I can never quite grasp where Line A or Line B is supposed to go without seeing it drawn out. As an author, I also find I sometimes forget to mention important details until I’ve sketched the activity out. “Did I remember to mention that Student C is supposed to be BEHIND Student B?” Similarly, if you’re discussing seating charts, room layouts, or geographic locations, putting in a good diagram is never a bad thing.

Furthermore, if you mention a particular teaching material such as a card or worksheet, it’s really helpful to include a sample. That sample can be created in your word processor and saves as an image. That way, teachers can see the level of detail, the size, different sections required, and all those pesky details you might forget to describe. Depending on book size and copyright, you can also make the materials photocopiable or add them to a website where teachers can download them!

If you have access to things you want photos of, you can also take photographs yourself. Smartphones have excellent cameras and a good digital camera is relatively affordable. It’s worth doing some reading on lighting, camera settings, and how to compose a photo. There are a lot of reliable websites and social media accounts that talk about the basics of creating high-quality, well-composed photos.

Hire an illustrator

Another option, particularly if you need a lot of images and/or very specific and detailed illustrations, is to hire an illustrator or photographer. That way you are sure to get exactly what you want and the quality will likely be extremely high.

Hiring a top-notch experienced professional book illustrator can get quite expensive. As with anything in life, cost is directly related to skill and experience. If it’s in your budget, that’s great. If not, there are other more affordable options. You can tap your networks and see if you know any artists who might charge more reasonable fees or be open to bartering. I know of an author who helps design and publish brochures and art books for the local art gallery. In return, the head of the gallery does some spot illustrations. Win-win. Let me emphasize that you shouldn’t expect or pressure friends who are professionals to lower their rates (or work for free), any more than you should feel pressure to lower your rates or work for free. Willing consent is always important!

Speaking of networks, LinkedIn is a great way to find talent. I’m amazed at how many artists and graphic designers I’m connected to. A search for “book illustrator” or “graphic designer” will likely turn up some great leads. Be sure to look at an artist’s website to make sure their style and their experience match what you are looking for. Ask mutual connections about the artist as well to get a sense of what it’s like to work with them and a sense of whether your project is a good match.

If you’re looking for more affordable help, Fiverr.com can be a great place to find extremely affordable artists. Most artists there have package deals so you have to be extremely specific about what you want your images, and be prepared to pay for every extra character or detail. You also have to be very explicit as often the illustrators there are focused on finishing the job. They draw what you tell them and what you pay for and don’t go beyond. They also don’t know anything about ELT and typically don’t look at your book, so you have to be good at writing art specs. However, the overall cost ends up being much lower than you would pay for a big-name artist and many people on Fiverr are surprisingly experienced and talented.

At the same time, there are a lot of scammers on there who will take your money and run. Others give you AI-generated images, while saying they are originals. They might even be stealing art from artist portfolios. Be sure to thoroughly vet any one you work with. Look at projects they’ve done in the past and reach out to clients for referrals. Note red flags such as all the art being in the exact same style, impossibly fast turn-around times, no profile image or profile images being clearly stock photos, and inconsistencies. If their name is Stephen Johnson but their email or social media handle is karasmith, that’s a red flag. If they claim to be located in the UK, but their website domain isn’t .uk, .com, .net, or .org, that’s another.

Decorative Art

Generally, teacher-resource books, academic texts, and graded readers will have no decorations, or limited ones, such as a colorful shape behind the unit title or an ornament between sections of a text and perhaps an image or icon on the chapter heading pages, maybe a fancy border around a table or sidebar. Textbooks or student activity books tend to have more elaborate decorations. Look at the layout of a textbook and note how the unit headers, chapter titles, sidebars, activities, and readings are decorated. You’ll likely see a variety of colorful shapes, lines, and icons.

In both cases, however, you’ll probable find all you need in the book design software. Programs usually have horizontal lines and boxes, and various ways to style them and styling options. There are also ways to add background, lines, and shading to texts. In addition, most fonts have what are called “ornamental glyphs”. Use a glyph or symbol browser to find all sorts of hidden treats. The font Minion Pro, in particular, has some lovely ornaments that work great for section breaks or unit openers. Any font named Dingbats or Wingdings will also have icons and decorations that you might find useful.

Sometimes you may want to get a bit fancier. Good stock photo sites, such as the ones I mentioned about will have decorative elements for books. You can find borders, hand-drawn Victorian or Art Deco ornaments and even Celtic knots. Finally, you can look for icons or even backgrounds to put behind your text. These are particularly helpful when working in a particular genre, or when formatting a reading to look like a website, a letter, or another form of media. When I designed a student book where the readings were meant to mimic secret agent files, I had a lot of fun with the cover, using a manila folder background and thick borders that made the illustrations look like Polaroid pictures.

I hope this article has been helpful in giving you ideas where to get illustrations for self-published books. I tried to give some parameters to think about, and the pros and cons of various options for sourcing art for a book. In the end, you may end up taking a few snapshots of something yourself, with a high-quality camera of course, use a lot of stock-photos from a paid site, as well as a handful from a free site that you really like, and sketching a few diagrams or sample activities yourself!

As always, leave questions or comments, particularly if you have a great place for authors to get art!