Indie Book Club discussion

Amygdala art has nice affordable ones. She has premade and on demand.

http://www.amygdaladesign.net/pre-mad...

Her premade are 60$ for ebooks and $80 for printed.

Are you talking about cover designers or artists who do custom cover art?

I use a couple of different artists for custom cover art. I found them at deviantArt.com. I followed a group there where people post art they've done on commission. After identifying some artists whose style I like, I checked out their posted commission info (keeping in mind that commercial use fees will be higher than the personal use rates that are usually posted). When I had picked out a few that would fit in my budget (which wasn't high; averaging under $150/book) I contacted them, describing the project and asking what their fees and other terms would be. Once those came back, I picked the ones I wanted to work with, checked with some other people they'd done commissions for to find out if they were trustworthy and easy to work with, then I made my decision.

For cover designers using stock images, $50-$100 sounds about right.

There is also a website called 99designs..forgive me if the spelling is wrong but Google will correct and find it. You put in an order and a price and artists from around the world submit ideas. You pick the best and pay. All rights are transferred with the final image. There is a youtube video about it. The best part is these people know how to format theimages. Maybe all commercial artists get that right now but that was the part I was afraid of.

There is a thread with a lot of good references under 'Bulletin Board - Services'. I think the thread is titled 'Illustrators'.

Some cover designers have participated in that thread and have provided samples plus there are references from authors for cover designers that they have used. Good luck!

You can also try DeviantArt. Worth reading profiles to see if a given artist is open to commissions (it may also include price ranges and specify if they take 'commercial' work. Some do commissions but not commercial work, such as covers).

I used 99Designs for my first book Relentless and I was very pleased with them. I will be using them again for my next book.

I'll add my support for 99designs. I used them for

I also used Ravven for

99designs was $299. Ravven charges $150.

I'm going to keep using Ravven for my anthology series, and the artist I found through 99designs for my novel series. I think if you get a good artist you should definitely keep them!

PS they both create ebook and print covers which is great when you use createspace.

I looked at the indie book covers that I liked and they all said who do their covers in their books.

I've used elance and fiverr.com.

My first artist on elance was a joy to work with -- he read my book, gave me multiple ideas, and went through revisions, etc to make sure I was absolutely happy. I don't know if the image at the end looked quite sleek enough (compared to other things I've seen out there), but I loved the image, and my first novel was more of a passion project anyhow.

My second artist with elance is clearly experienced in the world of designing covers. I paid her 350 for two different covers (though that's because the covers were closely linked).

There are also people on fiverr.com who will search through like public libraries and give you a cover... you could then pay a different vendor to do the spine/back, or pay the first artist a little more to do all of it (but often there, you're doing more initial work and you're using an existing image).

The difference between elance and fiverr is like 150-200/per cover vs. $10-20/cover...

I have had good luck with PicMonkey to make my own cover images. The basic is free and varied, allowing for a pretty good selection of photo manipulation. Doesn't take very long to understand and is far more simple than photoshop. If you are willing to put in the time, I find making my own much more rewarding.

For future reference there is also http://www.freelanced.com/ artists have portfolios posted. You can look through them or post a job and have them apply for it. I have done a couple of jobs from the site.

For more pricing guidance,

I've had two custom covers done, double spread for POD (take front cover for eBook). Working with the artist to discuss composition, get rough sketches before final drawing etc, cost $250 per cover. The result was excellent and exactly what I wanted for those covers.

I understand pre-mades represent good value, and are a great way to go when starting out, but if you do get good sales, I recommend replacing them.

I found my cover artist through links beginning at LousyBookCovers.com. One of the pages links to their sister site, which offers critiques to those making their own covers (CoverCritics.com). One of the pages there has a list of designers:
http://covercritics.com/?page_id=18

The artist for my book (see below) is Kat Mellon Writing & Design: http://www.kmwritingdesign.com/

She is incredible. Easy to work with, talented, and not expensive.

She also has some very nice pre-made covers whose prices range from $74 to $174. (My unique cover design was $174, and it was front & back for paperback [included front for Kindle].)
http://www.kmwritingdesign.com/p/pre-...

If you want something else, I recommend checking out the rest of the list (at the first link in this comment).

Referrals, referrals, referrals. Be careful of sites offering covers-even if they are well done--sometimes their terms of use are inhibiting. Use a cover artist recommended by someone who you know and whose book you can look at is the best best.

I use streetlightgraphics.com. They're fairly inexpensive full service agency ($450 for cover, ebooks, interior, ads), but they're booked up six months in advance.