8 Tips for Choosing Pictures for a Nonfiction Book
You’re writing a nonfiction book and you want to include some images in the interior of your book. . . .
How do you narrow down or choose between scans or digital images of photos, portraits, documents, etc., all formally referred to as “illustrations”? As an author, how do you know which images will make a good addition to your book?
Here are eight tips for choosing pictures for a nonfiction book.
The following tips apply mainly to the following:
pictures in history books (including family history and local history), biographies, memoirs and autobiographies, true crime books, politics books, cultural studies books, and other narrative nonfiction books, as well as reference material.
For gardening books and cookbooks, different rules apply. There, it’s all about beautiful, recently-taken photos with a unifying style and theme.
In offering editing services—including copy editing and developmental editing—and in my nonfiction author coaching calls and packages, . . .
I help clients write captions and list of illustration pages and choose images and decide where to place them. I am an avid reader in the above fields with a pulse on trends in the publishing industry. So my two cents below is based on that.
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Illustrations in Nonfiction Books
Wherever possible, select images from the time period of the subject or of the person being discussed.
Use illustrations that will fit on a standard book page, i.e., not a panoramic image.
Select clear, crisp, vivid, high-quality images for the interior that are likely to reproduce nicely in grayscale (unless you have a cookbook or coffee table book). You can’t go wrong with 300 ppi resolution images for the interior of a print book. For an ebook, 72 ppi to 150 ppi is ideal. You’ll want a cover image that’s 300 to 600 ppi.
Try to include images from different time periods or pertaining to different chapters of the book. In most cases, the images will be interspersed throughout the book so as to correspond with what is discussed in the text.
Give the edge to illustrations people might not have seen before (or that you’ve rarely seen elsewhere). Such illustrations are worth the space and expense.
Make sure that people from under-represented groups are represented. This is an important one.
Free images and public domain images are preferable. But if image fees and image permissions are required, if an image adds something valuable to your book, you may not want to skimp. If you are seeking permission clearance, allow enough time to have your request processed—waiting a month or two is not uncommon!
Remember your audience and, if you’re traditionally published, your publisher’s expectations. Remember what is typical for your genre and for your comparable books. For traditionally published authors, expectations should be discussed in advance.
Wishing you success in your book publishing,