Hey,

I'm writing from a beautiful little town called [Redacted] on the south coast of Portugal.

If anyone ever gives you the chance to go there, I recommend taking them up on it, assuming their identity, stealing their house, and then dumping their body at sea. (Guess who has been watching Ripley?)

The reason I have murder on my mind today is because I have a deal for you which slays. Not just any deal – THE deal.

You know the one. It comes around twice a year. Everyone goes nuts. The world literally stops turning under the sheer force of people running in the same direction - which is here:

Yes, yes.

AppSumo is once again asking you for a mere $39 in exchange for 100 stock photo credits at DepositPhotos – my #1 stock photo site.

That's an affiliate link, meaning I may get a small cut if you decide to purchase. But it doesn't affect the price you pay - which is a saving of 87% off the sticker price of $300 and the lowest price you can get this package at, anywhere.

Anyone who has availed of this before is likely already over at AppSumo, enjoying the best possible price for 100 DepositPhoto credits, comfortable in the knowledge that they don't expire, and the standard license covers all typical author uses (including websites, social media, email marketing, and ebook cover designs BTW).

You are safe knowing that AppSumo has a 60-day no-fuss guarantee if you change your mind and decide to spend the money on vol au vents instead (also a good choice IMHO). And then if you decide to double down, if you are a heavy user or just want to... stock up (sorry), then you can stack as many credits as you like.

The rest of this email is more for the newbies, the naysayers, the doubting Thomases, the ones on the fence about this whole kit and kaboodle, and those who have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. (And anyone else curious about the AI aspects of this deal... and my feelings on same 👀)

Let's break it down - what this deal is, who it's super useful for, where you can slather these stock pictures for fun and profit, and why I am making such bold and brash and - yes - brazen claims about its seaworthiness.

Sound good? Read on, pilgrim.

Why Stock Photos?

We all have holes in our game. For example, one thing I struggle with in my novels is descriptive writing.

I can write a pretty sentence without breaking sweat. My characterization has improved in leaps and bounds over successive novels. I've improved structurally beyond recognition (from an awful beginning, please note!).

But descriptions? I dreaded them for years and years.

My first drafts were always littered with [inset description here] whenever a new character took the stage, or my hero crested a mountain riding some steed or other.

A case in point: in my current science fiction WIP, the hero is literally called "Hero" as a placeholder in the first draft, and I have no earthly idea what he looks like.

I'm better than I used to be at injecting opinion into my descriptive writing so that it also reveals character and advances the story, but I've always struggled with the nominally simpler aspects - the nuts-and-bolts of telling the reader what they should be seeing in their mind's eye.

Conjuring up a vivid description from thin air was such a struggle for me that it could gum up the works completely, leaving me in a slough of despond which only primo gelato could cure.

I guess I'm not a visual person, in the current internet parlance.

The weird thing is that if you were sitting in front of me right now, I would have no trouble describing you.

It took me a while to realize this. Then the walls of my writing cave became festooned with all sorts of printouts - maps, landscapes, pictures of celebrities, stock models, objects of special importance to the plot. A glorious mess which opened the floodgates in dramatic fashion.

You could say that stock photos act as a visual prompt.

Of course, you don't have to use stock photos to do this - you can print any old picture off the internet and it's not like Getty Images is going to have a P.I. peering through your curtains and writing you up for a whole range of copyright infringements.

But I often reach for stock photos at some point in the process because there is a pleasing logical flow here from the creation of my story right the way through to getting my published books into the hands of actual readers.

I start off with that vision board and, like some kind of sketch artist, I simply... write what I see.

This might sound stupid or simple or obvious to you, but it was revolutionary for me. Because that vision board is not an end point; it's a beginning.

It's the first step in fleshing out my book branding.

Step-by-step it morphs into my book cover (I don't often design my own covers so, more normally, it forms the basis of the brief I send my designer but there is no point splitting hairs, he says, while doing just that).

And then from that initial book cover design comes:

• a matching Book 2 cover
• the series branding
• website graphics hyping the upcoming release (and pushing email sign-ups)
• social media posts building that buzz further
• newsletter graphics for my release week emails
• those Facebook Ads flooding the internet, seeking out readers old and new to drive that book into the charts.

And if you are a visual person, you can still follow the same process, but perhaps without such an elaborate vision board perhaps.

Sounds a bit ridiculous, doesn't it? Starting with a stock photo and ending up with a complete author brand. But it's not just possible, it's cheap and easy too!

Okay, okay, it takes a bit of practice before it gets easy, but the cheap part you get right away.

I broke down the entire process of building an entire author brand from a simple stock photo - using only free tools - in a very popular newsletter from last year called Build A Brand Identity In 2 Hours.

I strongly recommend you do that because we had a lot of fun during this process where we picked a stock photo, spun it out into a Book 1 cover, branded an entire series, and then created a bunch of matching Facebook Ads, website graphics, newsletter headers, and social media teasers.

Only using free tools BTW - and the entire process really did take me less than two hours (and only cost me a few stock photo credits – so like about a dollar LOL).

Make sure to check out the fake Facebook Page we made for our imaginary author!

That newsletter got so many responses from you guys that I know you found the exercise very useful indeed - especially seeing the ads and graphics "in the wild" on Facebook, so make sure to check it all out.

To be clear, if you are just making a vision board for yourself or sending pictures to your book cover designer for inspiration, you absolutely don't need to purchase stock photos or worry about rights - that only comes into play for commercial use.

But I very strongly warn against using copyrighted images for things like your book covers or website. If you are tempted to use them for things like blog posts... think again. I remember one indie author who did just that ended up getting sued and had to pay out several thousand dollars to make the court case go away - and it's not like she was a huge bestseller, raking in millions; either way, no one wants that kind of hassle.

So, for commercial uses like that, I strongly recommend purchasing stock photos from a legitimate source.

One of the reasons I have been using DepositPhotos as my trusted provider for stock photos - aside from how incredibly cheap they are for the size and quality of the library of photos (over 270m images now BTW) - is that the rights side is simple.

Your stock photo credits never expire, so you can sit on them as long as you like.

The license you are purchasing allows for all the typical uses an author might gin up: ebook covers, website images, email graphics, and so on.

100 credits for $39 dollars works out at *borrows computer from NASA* roughly 39c a photo.

That's a pretty great deal for one of the best providers around, peace of mind in a legal sense, and killer author branding which can be parlayed into all sorts of sales-driving marketing madness.

If you want my advice, he says to a bunch of people who literally signed up to get his advice, grab this $39 DepositPhotos deal from AppSumo (affiliate link) before they run out.

Yes, they run out.

They run out every single year and everyone complains. "Why didn't you tell me?" they say.

Now you have been told!

This promotion has been running for several years. I have been availing of this deal repeatedly for my own author business since 2017 so you know it’s legit.

The credits never run out so you can use a handful now, some more in a few months, and so on, without issue.

There's a 60-day guarantee if you change your mind (I have availed of this after fat-fingering on my phone and can personally guarantee it works).

And... yeah... there really is 270m pictures and vector graphics to choose from.

Not only that, there's also some "AI stuff" baked into the deal now because there is AI stuff baked into everything now. I can’t tell you much about it as I don’t know much about it, quite frankly.

You might love all this AI stuff and might be very excited at having some extra toys to play with, or you might hate it. But you can embrace that side of things with this deal, lambast it, ignore it, it's up to you.

Doesn't affect your regular use of stock photos as outlined above, or as you always might have used them.

How do I feel about it? Hoo-boy, thanks for throwing me into a field of landmines, DepositPhotos!

Let's break it down. *Puts on suit of armor*

AI Caramba

This is neither the time nor the place to get into the complex and controversial topic of AI - not least because I am terribly out of the loop on this fast-moving topic...

...but that's never stopped me before.

Let me quickly(?) say the following Contradictory Things:

1. I love tech and innovation, especially in the fusty world of books.

2. I'm generally skeptical of the tech hype cycle, and particularly so when it comes to Al, partly because...

3. None of this really is AI. I really have to say this because (a) I have a Masters in Cognitive Science and (b) a professor emailed me when I first wrote about the topic and told me I really should know better (and he was right). It's basically a marketing label simplifying more complex concepts (which I don't fully understand so I'll end this there).

4. I will go to the ends of the earth to defend artists' rights, and have multiple concerns here - only exacerbated by some of the defenses, quite frankly.

5. As one of them artists, I wonder if "Al art" is fundamentally flawed because it lacks a POV. Adam Savage explains that point far better than me so I'll leave it to him.

Phew, we get out of there alive.

The Closer

Those are my thoughts, such as they are. No doubt you have your own. Congratulations to both of us.

If you have doubts, I guess you can mull it over for a few days – despite that ticking clock. These deals usually run for about a week, maybe ten days. But there are no guarantees; sometimes the credits run out fast.

So… if any of this is of interest, I recommend jumping on the DepositPhotos $39 deal before you are disappointed (affiliate link).

That's it for this week. You'll be hearing from me again very soon when we'll continue with our Book Marketing Tier List (yes, we are covering all the other tiers), as well as our continuing serieses on Facebook Ads and email marketing.

I'm off down the village. I've heard rumors of a place selling pecan pie. Someone's gotta keep this economy going!

Dave

P.S. Music this week is Asaf Avidan with Reckoning Song.