On Book Cover Design...

[Magik]

I have searched and searched and can't seem to get a clear-cut answer, so I thought I'd go direct to you all and get your input.

I am almost to the point of needing a book cover. The two paths are DIY or outsource it to someone else. I already have a strong idea for a cover. The cover is simple and I could do it myself, IF I can find the right photo.

Here are my questions:

1. For those of you who outsource, who do you recommend I use? My aim is to keep costs for a cover under $500, ideally WELL under $500.

2. For those who DIY, where do you recommend I go for stock photos? The best I have found so far is Shutterstock, around $200 for a photo with extended license.

3. I'm a bit concerned about copyrights, especially if I turn out a hit. I don't want to get sued. Do any of you have 100% ownership of the cover? If so, what was your process?

Any input is appreciated.

 

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[GuestUser201]

Stock images are obviously the cheapest way to go about things, however if you want something painted or designed by an artist, expect to pay more.
I'm not entirely sure how licensing of stock images work, but I THINK that as long as you pay for the full license you don't have to worry about getting sued by anyone.

In terms of looking for a cover artist, you could go the super cheap route and find someone to do it on fiverr, or if you want something a bit faster and more professional go seek a cover artist on elance or freelancer.

Because I'm in this field I could find a personal artist friend of mine to do it for me, or do it myself since I've been doing stuff like this for the past 4 years. The issue is that you're going to need to pay enough to cover their minimum hourly rate. You have to remember these guys are living off of the money you pay them, and honestly, none of them can even afford insurance. Freelancers are on their own and have to account for not having a company behind them.

Personally, I'd charge a minimum of $50.00USD/hour. So assuming that I can create your cover in 4 hours I'd do it. You know what, PM me if you're interested. I'm trying to save money to invest in my future businesses!

 

[Selfy]

Great timing as I'm thinking about this.

Covers are where your energy and creativity should go according to most of the successful writers here. Problem is, how to get started on acquiring a cover that sells. Will costs to your cover give you the ROI that you want? How do you test?

$500 for a cover seems rather... excessive? I don't know, depends on your book. I've never paid more than $5 bucks for mine at fiverr.

Anyways, I'm installing photoshop in my computer. The only skill you really need in photoshop (or a program like photoshop - photoshop is overkill but powerful) is

1.) Layers
2.) Cutting
3.) Opacity/Feathering
4.) Exporting

You can probably learn that in 3 hours. Then shop at your genre see what's selling, then go to 123rf.com and iStockphoto.com find something like it.

According to @Held for Ransom

Requirements for the size of your cover art have an ideal height/width ratio of 1.6, this means:

A minimum of 625 pixels on the shortest side and 1000 pixels on the longest side
For best quality, your image would be 1563 pixels on the shortest side and 2500 pixels on the longest side

 

[Selfy]

This photo probably a stock photo of a road. Then the puzzle pieces and dollar transparently layered on the road and resized to reach that point on the horizon where everything converges (i just realized that was a dollar). That horizon has a circle opaque light set to high luminosity. Most probably rotated and feathered. The fading sky is a basic effect you'll learn in the tutorial. Then text with nice modern snappy looking fonts. What i'm saying is that if you have a concept, creating something like this isn't terribly hard to do for yourself.

This is the second iteration of the MF cover. The first one with the lambo didn't make the cut.

The title is awesome. Worth a million bucks.

 

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[AndrewNC]

http://help.bigstockphoto.com/hc/en-us/categories/200014635-Customers

 

[Selfy]

http://help.bigstockphoto.com/hc/en-us/categories/200014635-Customers

Wow they charge images per day, with lowest at 5 per day. So this is where graphic designers get their wares. One could technically launch a magazine using only this service. lol

 

[GuestUser201]

Great timing as I'm thinking about this.

Covers are where your energy and creativity should go according to most of the successful writers here. Problem is, how to get started on acquiring a cover that sells. Will costs to your cover give you the ROI that you want? How do you test?

$500 for a cover seems rather... excessive? I don't know, depends on your book. I've never paid more than $5 bucks for mine at fiverr.

Anyways, I'm installing photoshop in my computer. The only skill you really need in photoshop (or a program like photoshop - photoshop is overkill but powerful) is

1.) Layers
2.) Cutting
3.) Opacity/Feathering
4.) Exporting

You can probably learn that in 3 hours. Then shop at your genre see what's selling, then go to 123rf.com and iStockphoto.com find something like it.

According to @Held for Ransom

Good point, honestly you could learn how to do this pretty easily. I'm sure users on here would be happy to help you if you did that, including myself.
If you do decide to create it yourself all you need is photoshop and some time to learn how to do it.

Here's how I'd do it.

1. Thumbnails, do like 10 tiny sketches and try to work out what looks catchy from afar. This is where you nail your composition
2. Select a preferred thumbnail, and do a rough draft of your cover. Play with colours, lighting, typeface, and values here.
3. Work on something else for an hour and come back to it, look for any flaws, and improve upon and iterate until you've got it perfect!

Your goal is to have an eye grabbing cover, because lets face it, people do judge books by their cover way before they ever do any research on it.

Feel free to post your work here if you end up doing it yourself, I'm happy to give you free critique.

 

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[Voracity]

If you have a budget you could set your rate and get pitches from multiple artists on the website 99 Designs.

 

[Thiago Machado]

I agree with the response from the majority of people here. You can definately get a high quality book cover for lower than $500. It just comes down to who you are hiring, their skill, expertise, portfolio etc. But yeah... you can get one for below $500 with professional quality.

 

[Thiago Machado]

I agree with the response from the majority of people here. You can definately get a high quality book cover for lower than $500. It just comes down to who you are hiring, their skill, expertise, portfolio etc. But yeah... you can get one for below $500 with professional quality.

I myself am an advertising student and have done many projects like this before. Send me a message, we can discuss some of your ideas.

 

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[Rem]

I was attempting to do my own which wasn't horrible, but I ended up outsourcing to @AubreyRose and I am sleeping better at night. She is very talented. I would consider contacting her. She replied to me within an hour I think it was and this cover below was provided to me in under 48 hours. She communicates well so if you aren't happy with the first go 'round, you can edit things. The cost was only $199

 

[AubreyRose]

Thanks for the rec, Steve! I would also consider finding premade covers if you have a lower budget. I know you say you have a "strong idea" but in my experience that usually means "bad client" - a book designer's job is to work within your genre to produce a saleable cover, not to please the author but the potential readers. What's your idea for the cover?

 

[Greywolf]

You could learn, but the lady on fiver called pro_ebookcovers does An amazing job and knows all the right stuff for bleed edges and such when your ready to go to print/amazon.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

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[Magik]

Cool beans, gang. I will make a decision with the next few weeks on what I will do.

 

[Lauryn]

You can design 'em yourself... check www.goonwrite.com
Or pay someone whose art catches your eye.

 

[Magik]

The Decision: I opted to go with 99 Designs. While it is more expensive than going the Fiverr route or the stock book cover route, spending the extra money could make a ton of difference in the long run. The big selling point is they run it as a contest, so you usually get dozens of designs. Their guarantee is that if I'm not happy with any of them, I can get my money back as well, so that alleviates some of the risk.

What I did is I designed a mock cover in Word and also found a stock cover that closely resembles what I am looking for. I attached both files as examples, then gave a second option to design something more abstract, so maybe each designer will give me two different choices. To make it even more interesting, I offered to put the winner's name and website at the front of my book, so there is extra incentive beyond the prize money. I'll know a week from now if I have a winner or a dud.

 

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