Book Cover Designer Suggestions

How do you judge their previous work if you are not able to DIY a cover that is good?
How do you know their references judged them on the sales help and not the artistic impression of their work?

You do have to worry about copyright. You need to buy all rights so they don't make you pay per copy printed or if you use the cover on other advertising media.

And they should not be sourcing their art from anywhere. You paid them to create it not assemble it from other artists work.

Further you need to make sure your cover is not confusing, nor illegible, and looks good at thumbnail size if you use amazon.

 

Insult noted.
Sorry to burst your balloon but I have more than a clue.

Moreover, I am logical when I think.

 

I think this is a really important point that shouldn't be overlooked.

There's a sort of "code" to covers, at least in some genres, and, assuming the code is used properly, the cover can tell prospective readers a lot about the contents of the book. This may happen subconsciously, but it happens.

So, as a really obvious example, most romance novels have two characters on the cover, and you can generally tell from their state of dress/undress about how steamy the novel is going to be.

Or remember when 50 Shades blew up and a lot of people tried to appeal to its readers not only with the content of their novels but also with similar cover design. You liked 50 Shades? Hey, what does THIS COVER remind you of?

Those are both pretty obvious, but they're examples of how cover design goes well beyond artistic merit or lack thereof.

I don't care whether my covers have artistic merit. I don't care whether they'll attract the eyes of most people. I care whether they'll attract the eyes of the readers who are likely to buy my books. And having genre-trained professionals create the covers goes a long way toward making that happen.

 

If you feel you have the skills to create a good cover that will help sell your book, then by all means do it. Nobody is saying you shouldn't. More power to your arm.

However, if you're the sort of writer who does not have artwork skills, graphic design skills or layout skills—or the knowledge of what kind of image sells the kind of book you wrote—then it makes sense to hire a professional to produce covers for you.

You hire a professional cover artist the way you would hire any professional. You research them, research their competitors, ask to see examples of their work, get references, get a quote, sign a contract. And take the time to choose wisely.

I don't see a problem here. Why are we all arguing about this issue? Do your own cover design if you can, or if you want to. Hire a professional to do it if you can't.

 

We are discussing the issue because I suggested that if you are smart enough to write a book then you are smart enough to download a template and DIY a cover.

People have reasons why they are not good enough but somehow think they are able to tell a good cover artist. My experience is that there are way too many amateurs claiming to be professional cover artists out there trying to fleece authors. And that there is no way to tell if their covers really helped sales.

Secondly I noted that this is a VERY long tailed phenomenon and that most authors won't sell enough books to pay for even a cheap cover. So if you are only going to sell a few kindle copies then it makes sense to DIY a cover than paying a lot of money for a bad cover from an alleged professional artiste.

Initially I had asked a professsional about doing it. He worked for our company and did artwork for my reports, but did covers on the side. The price he quoted was obscene. In todays dollars almost 10000usd. To be fair with digital impacting everything and better software you can get covers for hundreds to thousands now not ten thousand.

But the cost was prohibitive so I found ways to make my own covers. Dan Poynter (RIP), the guru of self publishing, had a very nice sales oriented template to use for covers. The sales text was far more important than a pretty picture being used, although the image was expected and irrelevant unless it confused or offended the browser.

I wonder how many of those insulting my IQ are really artistes trying to con authors into buying their covers, versus the number of authors who are merely naive about the whole publishing process.

 

Indeed. You nailed it.

A bodice ripper should have a picture of , ... , well, ... , a ripped bodice.
Or maybe some Italian hunk with his shirt open showing his sixpack.

The quality of the artwork is secondary. Just don't confuse the reader, or make the text illegible with the image.

 

Sorry. I know a good cover. More importantly I know a bad cover. Bad covers kill sales. Nobody ever bought a book just because of the cover. That cover did not keep them from reading the back cover info, or the reviews, that actually sold the book.

I am not opposed to using true professionals. I am opposed to using amateurs posing as professionals to scam innocent authors who don't know better.

You don't know jack about me. I was a sales engineer and a proposal writer at one point in a varied career. I do know marketing.

I am opposed to using professionals for am amateur book that will not sell more than a handful of copies and would never sell enough to pay for a professional cover even if it were truly professional and not an overpriced cover from an amateur claiming to be an expert.

 

This isn't an argument against paying for a good cover, it's an argument against self-publishing.

I'm opposed to self-publishing in the vast majority of cases. But if you're going to do it, on the hope that you'll beat the odds, you should do it right--if you don't do it right, you've pretty much eliminated the modest chance of success that you started with. And that includes paying for decent design.

 

Sales don’t really matter. It is more about getting your stuff out there to someone who wants to read it and who will hopefully enjoy reading it as much as you enjoyed writing it.

If you want to make a living as a writer don’t write novels. There are plenty of other avenues available. Generally professional writers grind most of their lives in journalism, or even script writing, then when their hair turns grey they crank out the novels they’ve bee steadily working on over their more mature years.

 

There are pros and cons for all types of publishing.
These days so called self publishing, which is more aptly named vanity publishing, is the way the vast majority of books are 'published'.

Why should some amateur writing a krappy kindle novel pay for covers or even editing.
Now if they wrote a decent novel then they should pay for editing. I still value the worth of a so called professional cover.

Now if you have the confidence that your book will be a best seller then you should pay for editing and get a suitable cover at a low price.

Personally I pay for editing and DIY a cover. But if you dont have the skills then just buy a cheap cover.
If you have the skills then guide the cheap artist to do the type of cover that would be good.

But don't every pay through the nose for some artsy craftsy cover just because someone claims to be a professional cover artist. Way too many of them are confusing, illegible, and have other problems which kill sales.

 

All the more reason for amateurs writing novels to not pay for a cover.

 

- @noobienieuw , today

- @joe sixpak, Mar 19, 2017 - https://www.writingforums.org/threads/5-book-cover-design-ideas-for-best-selling-books.151770/#post-1551414

It's deja vu! (although I do appreciate the improvement in capitalization.)

ETA: I also appreciate the newbie-new user name this time around! Nothing to see here... just someone who's totally new! Not someone who was previously banned, sneaking back to do some more trolling! No, not at all. Completely and utterly NEW.

 

To folks reading the above who might believe it:

- Self publishing and vanity publishing are very different things.

- I’m not sure if the ”vast majority” statement is a misuse of some statistic or merely flatly false.

 

I

Indeed they are very different things. But most people conflate the two.
Even Writer's Digest now puts vanity press ads under the category self publishing further misleading people.

And amazon, while it could be true self publishing, as there is a free option and you could use your own ISBN, offers many vanity press services which too many users pay for needlessly. So as far as I am concerned they are yet another vanity press who 'publishes' the vast majority of books these days.

THE publisher is the owner of the ISBN. If you self publish you can hire out as much or as little of the work as you choose to do, but if you own that ISBN then you remain the publisher. Once you use someone elses ISBN and pay them to do anything you were vanity press published.

 

Incorrect.

(And just to save space, I note that the incorrectness and/or confusion continues.)

 

Not according to my IP lawyer. THE owner of THE ISBN *IS* THE publisher.

 

Now that we're back online I was able to deal with the re-intrusion of a previously removed member.

The thread has been trimmed back to those responses that are not related to said member. If your post was removed, please do not take that as a corrective action against you, but only as part of keeping the thread on track.

Thank you.

 

I think your cover sample is a real eye catcher. You have talent, badgerjelly!