From Reedsy:
Book cover design, also known as ‘book jacket’ design, is a favorite topic of conversation in the Reedsy office. Since we opened our digital doors over two years ago, we’ve seen hundreds of authors collaborate with designers — and much more join our regular ‘cover critiques,’ when our professionals offer feedback on self-published book covers.
Despite our fascination with the art of cover design, we were surprised how little we actually knew about the process and, crucially, its cost. In 2016, we published a report on the costs of self-publishing a book by crunching real quotes offered by Reedsy editors and designers over a year. We were able to give practical guidelines for the cost of editing, but when it came calculating an average price for a professional cover, the costs ranged from between $300 to over $1,500.
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At the most basic level, a professional-looking cover will help readers take you and your book seriously. Online retailers like Amazon do not distinguish between traditional and self-published books in their search results. That means independent authors must compete against traditionally published books and ensure their designs match or, if possible, exceed those the big boys are putting out.
You may have a friend who’s great with photoshop and has offered to help you for free. As enticing as it may be to work with a friend (for free!), a professional designer brings more than just photoshop skills to the table. Book cover design is a complex balance of images, text, and information — and you need someone who understands how each of these elements interacts with the others to best sell your book.
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“One of the benefits of hiring a professional cover designer is that he/she will have an intimate awareness of design trends within a given genre,” says U.S. designer Kevin Barrett Kane. “Emulating the designs of other titles within a given genre can make a book look generic, but being too original with the design risks confusing readers about the subject of your book. An experienced cover designer knows how to thread the needle between the overdone and the ambiguous.”
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A well-written brief will pay dividends. Not only can it help you secure your designer of choice, but it lays the ground for a smoother collaboration and will often result in a lower quote. A good brief doesn’t just describe the book in stunning detail; it’s also your first (and often only) chance to pitch yourself as a collaborator.
“I worked in advertising for 18 years so I can smell it on the air when I know I’m heading into a mire of endless demands,” says illustrator and designer Chuck Regan. “I know who’s going to get the blame when their book does not sell because of a cover they didn’t like.
“Ultimately, my decision to work for an author is based on a sliding scale. What’s the subject matter? How much detail is required? What’s the timescale? And how much fun do I think it will be to render the cover?”
Link to the rest at Reedsy
I run a small Goodreads group called Book Cover Reviews. The goal is to help authors (especially indie self-pubbed authors) create — or acquire — better book covers. Feel free to throw up a cover design for critiquing. Plus, there are other resources there.
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/167105-book-cover-reviews
Harald, curious about the spelling of your first name, is that manner of spelling tied to any one heritage group?
Yep. Every “Harald” I know about in Germany and Scandinavia spells his name this way. I was born in Germany and named after the Prince of Norway, now the King (Harald). Go across the Channel and it becomes “Harold.” Sort of like Juan and John, Pieter and Peter. So what’s the origin of “USAF”? !
Thanks Harald, that is interesting. I was guessing Ireland or the shires. Germanic and Scand. Fascinating. It wounds like your parents really liked the king/prince.
USAF, air force: 21 years, ret.
Id put it this way re makers of book/album/campaign covers: there’s a huge stable of riding horses. Some horses are pickier than others. They dont get ridden. Their upkeep is far too high to keep them. Because there are endless supplies of good working horses fine of hands and withers, who do the job well, and are friendly to all riders; they live like kings when not working.
It goes without saying, I think, amongst most working persons, that freelancers of any kind, science, shrinkdom, catering, design of interiors, architects etc can choose who they work with. But if they are too sideral and rejecting, soon as the word gets around in each rejected person’s often large circle, so do the referral words start to disappear.
It seems to me as a pro, that peevishness and pique about who is worthy to be a client, is not what design is about. Not even close.
Making a book cover for hire for a book publisher, is a diff set of boundaries than working with an indie. Well noted. From inside publishing, there is much said about self-centered authors AND artists who design the book, not just the cover. Though often never said to artist/authors face, trust, there are those who are despised because of their precious takes on themselves
Ive been in this career for 50 years+. I’ve seen em come and go including those who want a lifetime royalty share on the book because they designed a cover. Trust this: Fabulous covers are not commensurate with cost. A great cover can cost mere dollars. A c cover can cost a $1000.
Pubs NY are not paying even close to what they used to for orig art, let alone the ‘first thought, right thought’ wrong headed thinking I’ve seen in artists who are off the mark, or take too much time to produce because their ‘feelings’ are too involved. It’s a business. Not a therapy session. And because there are literally at least a billion accomplished artists in the world, a book author’s choice is magnified endlessly.
Recently an artist wanted 500.00 to reprint his art on one of our ebooks. The book in hb/pb sells very well, but not because of his art which no one in years has ever mentioned once, but the book sells because of the content. His request for a whole pile of money was politely refused. We did the art for no money. People remark about the art often, like it fine. We like to own all rights to our art and covers and when we make them, we do. Have also bought all right to others’ art for use on our works. Not interested in licensing art.
Ive a small collection of book cover art that I find fabulous; on books not by us. One standout is The Scarlet Letter pub’d by Barnes and Noble. Brilliant Red Blackletter/Lucinda, says it all. THAT kind of design is so rare. Spare, immediate, in depth, in both color and shape and symbolic meaning. More than an amazing trifecta.
Hi!
So, I am a designer (with 17 years experience) and a writer (with three books of my own.) I have loads of feelings about this.
Few thoughts:
“I thought the author was hiring the cover designer, not the other way around. I know he says “work for the author, but the tone says the opposite.”
If I’m not interested in your pitch, I’ll probably reject working with you. If you want full creative control, I’ll probably reject working with you. After all, I am the design professional. 🙂
As a designer, I want to be excited about the project. So yeah, you might be hiring, but I am also in a place career-wise where I might not be interested and I can walk away. Gone are the days where I kowtowed to a client just for a paycheck. I want a relationship, a partnership where we’re both working towards making something amazing.
“$1000 is justified is if the designer can prove with some stats that their cover nets you more than 2K in sales within a year”
This is certainly an interesting way to look at cover design. It’s not how I’d personally approach it. Then again, design is a part of my livelihood. I’ve spent a year or more on each of my books, I’ve hired editors and copy editors, so I want a cover to match the same the level of passion I’ve poured into the pages. So I want to look as professional as possible and will spend accordingly. I don’t assign a value to that. It’s worth whatever it takes. (This is a big reason why I chose indie-publishing over traditional. I wanted that control and I found most speculative fiction houses didn’t have cover designs that were good enough. This has changed in the last few years, there’s been some great work coming from TOR and DAW lately.)
One other thing: price varies wildly. There’s also increased fees with custom artwork, as well as licensing for things like typefaces and stock photos. (Make sure you own licenses for the fonts you use!) So price can swing. I could easily see a good cover, using a professional typeface and custom art, run upwards of a grand. Not always, and there are a lot of designers who aren’t as expensive as others. The internet has allowed writers from wealthier countries to hire designers from poorer countries to work for wages that, while good in their country, would be a pittance here. That’s a part of the current market.
I’ve written a few articles myself on cover design:
Building A Better Book Cover
https://blog.kmalexander.com/2014/01/09/building-a-better-book-cover/
A Weird Fiction Cover Design Intervention
https://blog.kmalexander.com/category/writing/cover-design/
Also! Happy to answer any questions here as well. 🙂
I pay on average, between $75 to $160 for my covers. The designers I use will ask for a brief synopsis of the content and then will ask follow-ups to get a better idea. With my last cover, I gave the designer carte blanche on the cover and ultimately received a really fantastic cover. I may have her redo a cover for a novella of mine to better match up with the content/concept contained within.
Another great website is Nathan Shumate’s lousybookcovers.com. The covers are to bellylaugh at, and also cry about. I hit it every day.
Not only are the covers hilarious and simultaneously sad, but the high level of sniggering snarky comments is on a par with TPV.
Every month, Joel Friedlander (thebookdesigner.com) has an ebook cover design awards post, broken down into fiction and non-fiction. People send in their covers and he evaluates and comments on them — what works and what doesn’t. The covers are shown.
There are many more fiction submittals than non-fiction, but that’s to be expected. One thing he pushes hard on is genre cover conventions and meeting browsing reader expectations.
I don’t always agree with his choices and evaluations, but it’s an excellent tutorial on book covers. I’ve saved these blogs for the past several years and it’s a great reference tool.
Could always be story too.
I have a book cover designed by a big name professional, but that book has only sold a handful of copies over the past few years.
I have another book that I had some freelancer in Eastern Europe do for around $100. That book has sold about 1,500 copies, which is really good for me.
So it’s hard to say if a really good cover will do it for you or not.
I can honestly say I’ve never purchased a book because of its cover. Though I know a lot of people do, even though the cover generally isn’t even relevant to the story.
I have, however, put quite a few books back on the shelf after looking at the cover. Anyone else remember the old Signet paperbacks that used photographs of posed dolls? The freakish migraine-headache-spidery artwork on Dell paperbacks? Or the uninspired schlock so common everywhere else?
Good cover art won’t persuade me to buy your book. Bad cover art, on the other hand, will cause me to put it back without even bothering to read the blurbs, because it tells me you (or your publisher) thought so little of your work, any junky picture would do just to get it out the door.
Really, just a solid color and block letters is *way* better than that.
The only way $1000 is justified is if the designer can prove with some stats that their cover nets you more than 2K in sales within a year, and he/she guarantees 95% of money back if it doesn’t.
OR
The cover image involves an actual cover model(s) shoot with multiple blended images–ie, pay model, pay photographer, license images for setting, etc.
If it’s stock photos and some Photoshop, yeah, naw.
For that I’d expect it to pay for name brand cover artists — Boris Vallejo or someone like that. But such artists would be something for indies to aspire to if they roll that way. Otherwise I’d just assume $200-$400 for custom artwork, and way less for some very cool artwork at istockphoto or the like.
I wouldn’t pay that much under any circumstances. I get good covers for about $200 and do not have to pay until I’m 100% happy. Covers with original, to-order art are $300. I have three very nice pre-mades I picked up for $10, $15, and $15. (and I actually did use two of them so far.) If you shop the sales, you’ll know that $1000 is a crazy high number to pay for a cover. I suppose if you’re making money like Force or Forest or Howey, you are willing to pay more. But for the midlist indie, $200 is a more reasonable amount to budget. For someone who hasn’t yet gotten into the black, hunting for the $10-15 pre-mades on sale makes much more sense.
Mine cost about $50-$60. Not custom artwork, but it is a custom cover to the market.
These are very pricey examples. I get illustrated Fantasy covers for circa $200.
For my first series, my stockphoto illustrations were under $100.
Isn’t this backward? I thought the author was hiring the cover designer, not the other way around. I know he says “work for the author, but the tone says the opposite.
I think it’s just a reference to the fact that he, as well, can say no and won’t always accept a project.