Hello,

Please forgive me if it's rude to post here. I'm not a photographer. I sell eBooks at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the Apple iBookstore, and many other retailers. Most of what I write and sell is erotica.

I'm posting this out of frustration. I will probably look for other online forums where I can make this plea...

In case you weren't aware, people are self-publishing eBooks at the major book retailers and they're making money from it. A lot of us, especially in romance and erotica, constantly shop for new stock images to use as covers on a regular basis. In the past six months I've purchased credits and downloaded photos from: iStock, Dreamstime, Fotolia, 123rf, CutCaster, and several others.

If you happen to go to Amazon or Barnes & Noble you'll see a lot of the same stock images used, repeatedly. It's maddening. But eBooks are a huge industry and it's only going to get bigger.

These are the types of images that, I, personally, am constantly looking for and unable to find:

1. Attractive plus size / curvy women - there's a lot of demand for these books but it's hard to find images of pretty plus sized women at stock photo websites that are not overused or, demeaning. I'm not interested in pictures of a fat woman holding a measuring tape around her stomach. A curvy, pretty, heavyset woman in lingerie would be ideal. Or, a woman like this with an attractive man. Or with another woman. Or two of these woman. And so on.

2. Long-haired men. Yes, I can put hair on a man if I use PhotoShop, but it's not something I can easily do by myself and I would rather not spend hundreds of dollars on cover art. We just need more variety because some of the same pictures show up everywhere. Not Fabio-looking, necessarily. Just attractive, long-haired men with a variety of hair colors. There are a few models who sell exclusive stock photos of themselves but they are way overused. We need some fresh meat.

3. Spanking / bondage that's tasteful but not silly.

4. Partially nude men / women together in groups... like, two men and a woman. Two women and a man. Three men and one woman. Stuff like that.

5. "Hot" women who don't have strange looks on their faces or aren't standing in front of some ugly background, like a wall in a hotel room.

6. Pretty lesbians in natural positions. There are a lot of stock images of women but the "good" ones are usually overused. There are some I'd love to use but one of the women will have really short hair, or one of the women will have dreadlocks, or something else going on that's weird and makes the photo worthless to me.

I hope that wasn't inappropriate. I'm just not sure if a lot of people who sell their images to stock photo websites are aware of the demand for eBooks. We write them and sell them like crazy. I've had weeks where I've purchased ten photos and used them either for my own books or someone else's. There are probably some exclusive stock photo sites out there that could sell me what I need but the ones I've seen are charging $150 / picture. No, I just want to be able to buy these images at the regular sites where I shop.

If you know of any other forums where I could post this message, please let me know.

Thanks,
Shaina