Has anyone used a graphic artist from the Fiverr.com web site to design their book cover? If so, I would like to know how the experience went for you. I took the plunge for the cover of my first book. I did a cover that I like for the e-book, but the nuances of creating a front, back, and spine for a paperback seemed a bit daunting. I knew I could do it, but I also knew it would take time. For the fees these graphic artists charge (typically $10 to $30) I decided it was at least worth a try. The jury hasn't rendered a final verdict yet, but at this point I am not happy with the way things have gone. I initially contacted four people to sound out about what I had in mind. They all responded, but a couple of them were rather English challenged (despite claiming to be fluent in English), so that narrowed it down to two. I flipped a coin and went with one of those two. More correspondence -- I explained that I had the e-book cover, but that I wanted a professional to turn it into a cover for a physical book. I provided two hi-res images, which need to be combined. I asked if she could do that and she answered in the affirmative. I told her the font was Futura. I sent her an image of the e-book cover so she would know what to match, and I sent her a mock-up of the back cover with the text I wanted on it. Three days later I received her cover. It's not at all what I asked for. All she did was take one of my two images, put it on the cover, and throw the title on in a font totally different from Futura. When I asked about the font, she said she can only use fonts licensed from some type source I have never heard of. She gave me a link to their site and told me to pick the font I want. Seriously? She's the graphic artist. Who ever heard of a graphic artist -- a book designer -- who doesn't have Futura (or a clone) thereof already on their computer? It's one of THE most classic type faces in the world! It shouldn't be my job to sift through dozens of web pages and hundreds of fonts to look for something she should already have. More to the point -- if she actually doesn't have Futura or a clone, she should have told me that up front, when I specified that I wanted to use Futura. It's now several days later and I haven't heard back from her about the revisions she promised to make. I'm not holding out much hope. So I spent today doing what I should have done from the start -- I did the cover myself. I only have Microsoft paint to work with so it took a bit of fiddling around to set the proportions and the magnification to the proper size for a 5.5" x 8.5" book, but I got it worked out. I like it but, with a degree of fear and trepidation, I sent a copy of it off to a friend whose wife has designed and published books to get her feedback. I expect to receive that tomorrow. If she pronounces this cover "good to go," I can send it all off to KDP and move on to my next project. But I hope to get some feedback on Fiverr.com to help me decide if I want to try another artist from that site for the next book. Note that I have not named the graphic artist. I am not happy but, to give her the benefit of the doubt, English is not her first language. On top of that, I doubt she has ever done a book cover for a client whose undergraduate major was art (with a concentration in graphics) and who already had a design prepared when they contacted her. The unacceptable design was probably attributable to a failure in communication. Consequently, I don't think it would be fair to name her.
The thing about fiver (and upwork and 99designs) is that its a portal site to lots of designers, some of whom are very good, some are competent and some of whom have the design skill of a monkey with a torque wrench However it strikes me that you don't want a designer you want someone to produce exactly what you've already 'designed' in your head using the images and font you've already picked... unless you have a background in cover design that is generally a recipe for disaster.. if you do have a background in cover design I'd suggest getting yourself a photoshop subscription and doing it yourself (don't for godsake try and publish using a cover made in MS paint) in regard of futura its not a free font... so your designer is quite right that she can't just use it (A lot of fonts that you have on your computer as display fonts are not free for commercial use) while you are right that a competent professional designer will have a wide range of commercial licenced fonts... you don't find those designers on fiver... you find them on their own websites charging mid three figures... and they won't take a job where you've already made all the design decisions
I have not used fiverr but have heard many experiences. I have bought several covers though. Essentially, you get what you pay for. Normally a custom cover from a professional costs $100 at the cheap end. For $10 you should expect someone slapping free font on an image (hopefully one they have the rights for).
I used Fiverr for my e-book cover. The designer was called Germancreative and I was very happy with the design.
Yes, I did want her to produce what I had already designed -- that was made clear before she accepted the assignment. The design wasn't in my head, it was mocked up and provided to her before she started. And I was clear that I wanted that design, because the e-book has already been created and is being sold with that design. As to a "recipe for disaster," I'll have to disagree. As I mentioned, my undergraduate degree is in graphics. I went on to become an architect (which is a design field), and (like most architects) I have design in mind with just about anything I do. Friends who have seen both my design and the one from Fiverr agree that mine is the better, "cleaner" design, so I don't think it's exactly a recipe for disaster.
If you would, please PM me a link to your book on Amazon. I would like to see what the cover design looks like. Thanks.
If a cover designer said they could design their own house so they don't need an architect what would you tell them? That aside how does your design stand up against other covers in the same genre.. how well does it fit in with the current vogue (since fitting in is more important than standing out since it determines the reader expectation) I'd suggest going to amazon and cut and pasting the top five covers from your genre to create a mood board and then putting your design next to them... does it fit in flawlessly so that someone who didnt know couldnt pick it as the odd one out ?
You can find good creators on Fiverr, they're under Fiverr Pro and they are people who have been vetted for their talent and consistent quality. These are people who are only using Fiverr as a platform to find more work. They are competent freelancers in their own right and they are going to charge you their going rate, which can range up to $1000 or more. Book covers are not cheap and if you're not willing to pay the going rate, expect it to be to your detriment.
I don't think that it's impossible for the author to design a good book cover. It takes time and dedication, yes. But if you're willing to put in the work I don't see that you'd automatically be less able to produce a good book cover than a 30$ pro from fiverr. Resources how-to are there aplenty, if you only look for them. I believe @SapereAude you did all you could do. You came in with a vision and provided specific details you wanted the artist to do. It's not the point if the provided book cover was better or worse than what you wanted: The point is that the artist didn't follow your guideline.
Yes but my point was that that's not how you work with a designer... if you want to work with a designer you say "this is roughly what i was thinking, this is what i want to fit in with, this is my gentre, these are the sorts of things i want to convey, please show me some concepts... not 'I want you to use this picture and this picture and this font and i want it to look exactly like this...' that's not working with a designer, that's using a photoshop expert to produce your design (which costs a lot more than $30 - the average photoshop expert charges nearly that for an hour) On the former point authors can definitely do better than a $30 designer... but that's not where the bar is, because 'better than crap' doesnt sell books... authors who have the skills can create an acceptable cover or even do better than a proper cover designer, but there is a minimum standard for that... and that minimum standard involves a) knowing what a good cover looks like and b) having the skills and software to deliver that vision. and that doesnt mean using MS paint... someone whos doing a decent cover design uses photoshop or an equivalent program (Gimp, serif photo, painshop pro etc).. if all you want to do is put text on top of a photo you can get away with something like Canva, but when you start combining two photos, or interleaving layers a photo editor is a must.
Then where do I look for a photoshop expert? I believe they're dubbing themself 'designers' nevertheless. That's where my caveat came in with
Nope its a different skill set... a designer takes a rough idea and makes it first into a concept and then into a cover... a photoshop expert does exactly what they are told... combine this image and this image like this and add xyz font here... if it winds up looking like a dogs brekfast that isnt their problem because they deliver what you told them to do They generally call themselves Freelance Photo Editors and the good ones are extremely expensive (More so than a cover designer) there are of course an enormous number of cheap ones on upwork, fiverr and all the other gig sites, but as usual you get what you pay for There are some good but not hugely expensive ones based in the far east but sorting the wheat from the chaff is the hard part
Yes, you can do it if you are a skilled graphic designer with a knowledge of how your particular genre operates. The cover sells the book. It's not the writing, although that has to be good too, but if you have a bad cover, the best book on the planet will never sell enough to matter. The problem is, you're not going to find a skilled graphic designer who knows the conventions of any genre for $30. You're just not. If you think you are, you have very unrealistic expectations.
As an update, I went back to Fiverr for a cover for a second book. I chose a different cover artist this time (the second of the two I had looked at for the first one) and this experience was totally different. This artist was communicative, when I gave her a synopsis of the plot she said she had ideas, and we moved forward. She sent me a link to her stock photography web site, from which I chose a few of images that I thought would work. I sent her the links, gave her the raw data needed for the cover, and in much less time than expected she sent me her first design -- which is just about perfect. I have asked for two very minor adjustments, and a question about the primary font (because I'll need to duplicate it as closely asd possible for the inside title page), and that's it. Very painless. The problem is that there are so many cover artists on Fiverr that it's impossible to know which are good and which aren't without actually working with one.
I used Fiverr for my book cover. I wanted a retro design, and found an artist who specialized in that. I gave him a reasonably detailed description of the material and the genre, and what I did NOT want to see, and he came up with an image I really liked. If I don't end up using the actual art, I'll definitely use the concept he came up with - in saying that, I do like it quite a bit.
I used Fiverr for 2-3 different projects and I've never been pleased. For my new project, which I consider something of a relaunch of my writing career, I used Reedsy to find a professional graphic designer. It's significantly more expensive ($600-ish), but unfortunately, in my opinion, when it comes to cover design, you get what you pay for. The Fiverr designers' work (again, in my experience) tends to look cheap and devalue the book it goes with. IMHO, you want a cover that will make your book indistinguishable from publishing house products. Cheap covers do exactly the opposite-- they scream amateur and set you apart from the books you're competing with.
I paid just under $100 for a cover from Fiverr. It was acceptable, but I was not very pleased with it, and it seemed that the artist had creative limitations, once I asked for corrections. Each time I asked for an alteration, I received it very quickly and had a couple of days to accept. When I didn't respond within the time limit the contract was closed. And in the end, I more or less abandoned it. However, I had a fairly complex project with photos of buildings and people that needed to be artfully intertwined. I think it was beyond this particular artist's capabilities. I am going to take another crack at it with Fiverr. I found another designer that has a great portfolio. He has quoted me $498 which seems reasonable as I have three photographs. I'll let you know how it turns out.
