Simon & Schuster: Publishing quality covers

You've always been told not to judge a book by its cover, but the art managers at Simon & Schuster welcome the intense scrutiny. The world of publishing can be an inherently risky space, with very few authors finding their way onto the much-anticipated best sellers lists. But having a gripping storyline paired with just the right cover art can catapult a novel to success. Read on to find out how Simon & Schuster benefitted from a partnership with Shutterstock Premier. Publishing more than 2,000 titles annually under 35 imprints, Simon & Schuster has been the gold standard in literary publishing since 1924. Illustrious authors Mary Higgins Clark, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Walter Isaacson and many more call Simon & Schuster home. While Simon & Schuster is known for their classic library of works, they also keep an eye firmly on the future. In 2014, Simon & Schuster expanded a pilot program to bring all of their titles to public libraries, including eBook formats available internationally.

The client

Each individual book at Simon & Schuster is treated like a unique creative project, with individual author preferences and audience profiles taken into account. But selecting just the right cover art can make a world of difference when it comes to the potential success of a new or republished title. Simon & Schuster needed to find a creative content provider that could help bring life into their backlist of titles. Not only did the images have to be the perfect balance of sharp, elite, and refined, but they also needed to work for both print and smaller eBook budgets. Seeking licensable imagery that could fulfill publishing needs was a huge undertaking for the Simon & Schuster team. All too often, it would take ages to find that one perfect image, only to discover that it was unavailable for publishing use, appeared on multiple other stock websites, or didn't include high-resolution versions. Spending time negotiating usage, pricing, and availability of images was simply taking up too much of Simon & Schuster's resources without providing best-sellers the results they deserved. The creative team at Simon & Schuster was on a mission to find a solution that could meet their unique publishing needs and take their cover art to the next level.