There is a lot that goes into finding an artist to do the cover for your book. One of the first things I tried to do was to get an idea of the going rates for digital art work for book covers. When I looked at this a year ago the price range started at around $300/400 and up. This is the cost for a single character with background art. Having more than two or more characters and the price goes up dramatically. If you want a full battle scene and you’re starting to talk about special pricing.
This cost should cover the fonts for the front, back cover and sleeve. If you do it this way you really need to be prepared ahead of time. You want to make sure you have your name, the text for the back cover and the title completed exactly the way you want it and in the size for the book you’ll be using. I just want to point out that I don’t recommend doing it this way … except for making sure that the artist gives you a copy in the picture for the size of book you plan to use for your createspace cover. (I’m using createspace because it’s what I use for my physical book size. If you’re using another printer then you need to make sure your picture reduces properly to the size you need it to be. Most printers want a “print ready” cover. If your artist doesn’t do this for you then you will need to do the final processing on your own, which can be tough to do.) I went ahead and chose to do the fonts myself. Leo did do a title and name for me on the front, but left the image open so that I could change it around if I wanted to, which I did end up doing several times before I got it to where I felt it was right.
Finding an artist was extremely difficult. I searched through several different web sites like Diviantart.com, but the best web site for finding artists was Diviantart from my experiences. I also searched for the artists that did the covers for some of the book I love to read. Lastly, I found several graphic artist web sites. Even after all of that it wasn’t easy to find someone I wanted to work with. Out of the artists I made a list of that I liked their art style and wanted to have them do the book cover, I had to find one willing to do the work.
Out of the first fifteen to twenty artists I tried, one guy answered back and said sorry but he doesn’t work with individuals, only firms. That was because so many writers had tried to cheat him out of his money for doing the art work. He wasn’t nasty about it, but just explaining what he’d been through.
This prompted more research on my part once again. I got an idea for the normal process. Come up with a concept, have a graphic artist sketch out an idea, come to an agreement on the idea, pay half up front and pay the last half upon completion. Then I searched for some more artists. This time I got lucky and actually received three responses back. They all had good artwork and were nice and professional to talk with. The first response came from Leo Black, second from Mike Gauss, and a third named Ventrue. I also had an angle on some Chinese and Korean artists, but they were a little too sexual for what I was looking for on my cover. As you know I ended up going with Leo. Good choice I think, just check out the cover for Book One, Flight.
My next post will be communicating the ideas you have to the graphic artist you’ve chosen.
This cost should cover the fonts for the front, back cover and sleeve. If you do it this way you really need to be prepared ahead of time. You want to make sure you have your name, the text for the back cover and the title completed exactly the way you want it and in the size for the book you’ll be using. I just want to point out that I don’t recommend doing it this way … except for making sure that the artist gives you a copy in the picture for the size of book you plan to use for your createspace cover. (I’m using createspace because it’s what I use for my physical book size. If you’re using another printer then you need to make sure your picture reduces properly to the size you need it to be. Most printers want a “print ready” cover. If your artist doesn’t do this for you then you will need to do the final processing on your own, which can be tough to do.) I went ahead and chose to do the fonts myself. Leo did do a title and name for me on the front, but left the image open so that I could change it around if I wanted to, which I did end up doing several times before I got it to where I felt it was right.
Finding an artist was extremely difficult. I searched through several different web sites like Diviantart.com, but the best web site for finding artists was Diviantart from my experiences. I also searched for the artists that did the covers for some of the book I love to read. Lastly, I found several graphic artist web sites. Even after all of that it wasn’t easy to find someone I wanted to work with. Out of the artists I made a list of that I liked their art style and wanted to have them do the book cover, I had to find one willing to do the work.
Out of the first fifteen to twenty artists I tried, one guy answered back and said sorry but he doesn’t work with individuals, only firms. That was because so many writers had tried to cheat him out of his money for doing the art work. He wasn’t nasty about it, but just explaining what he’d been through.
This prompted more research on my part once again. I got an idea for the normal process. Come up with a concept, have a graphic artist sketch out an idea, come to an agreement on the idea, pay half up front and pay the last half upon completion. Then I searched for some more artists. This time I got lucky and actually received three responses back. They all had good artwork and were nice and professional to talk with. The first response came from Leo Black, second from Mike Gauss, and a third named Ventrue. I also had an angle on some Chinese and Korean artists, but they were a little too sexual for what I was looking for on my cover. As you know I ended up going with Leo. Good choice I think, just check out the cover for Book One, Flight.
My next post will be communicating the ideas you have to the graphic artist you’ve chosen.
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