What's the worse thing about hiring an online graphic designer?

I do book cover design, though mostly for a couple small presses.

There's such a variance of prices, I don't think that would be a problem, though hiring someone who has the style you want may be a little more costly. The biggest problem I see is honestly dealing with stock images (though this is more on the designer's end), because you're limited to how you can use the cover depending on where you purchase the stock (how many copies, what kind of promotion, etc), unless you do your own photography or illustrations.

Also, trying to match the author's expectations while still keeping with the market can sometimes prove troubling. On one hand, you want to make something the author likes. On the other hand, you may have constraints... what they want doesn't show their genre well, or they want a very specific character that may require a lot of manipulation to match images. Doable, but may require more time than a lower cost cover will buy.

Some things to think about, hopefully that was helpful.

I don't design book covers (well not yet anyway) but I've got a small design buisness back in France and I see a lot of those complaints on the web about our profession.

"the writer was not able to make the artist understand what was wanted, so the end product, while of good quality, was not acceptable"

This is the only remark I personnally got, but I had put 600 hours in a website for a guy when he was paying me for 400 so I had to put a stop to it. That consisted of 16 mockups that he all liked, that I finished and then he changed his mind.

If you want the designer's point of view I would say the problem is mostly that the client thinks he knows the designer's job. Most of my clients hire me because they have no graphical talent at all. A designer not only has some kind of sense of esthetics but also has "field knowledge". If you ask me to put too many colors the print is gonna be really expensive and of poorer quality, if you ask me to put Comic Sans Ms I'm just gonna go nuts.

If you think Sketchblock is better you're wrong. This summer a client really insisted I use this font, we met in a coffee shop and actually saw 2 shops with that exact font on their storefronts.

The real dangers of hiring online is not knowing who's working for you or if they're any good. Best thing is to set up a contract. My basic contract allways gives at least 3 drafts and 15h of free redesign per exemple. That is I think what both parties have to agree on from the start.

Not a cover designer, but I've done custom work in another area entirely. It was a hobby, so it wasn't for the money, but I found the two main problems were:
1) it's almost impossible to download the client's idea from their mind to yours. And, the more specific/implausible/inaccurate a thing is in their heads, the less able they are to articulate their whims.
2) some customers are never satisfied, and never going to be satisfied: they like the preliminary idea, you start, they keep coming up with new variations, and details, or when they actually see it, "I'll know it when I see it, and I'm not seeing it. Sorreee!"

Treysaur21 said:

If this isn't the write forum, I'll be happy to move it!
I've been wracking my brain all day trying to figure out how I'm going to find a large group of writers/self-publishing authors to run a survey by, and I only just remembered I'm a member here! My brain is a silly place sometimes.
So, the question I want to ask is simple: What annoys you most about hiring a graphic designer for whatever it is you may need them to do? What are the reasons behind why you would not hire one? have you had any bad experiences with a designer?
Are you designer yourself?
Do the services all cost too much?
Too many pesky fees?
Anything else?
I am a ebook cover designer as well as a self-pubbed author, and part of growing my new business is doing market research. I hope you guys can help!

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Well i'm an artist myself and i have been drawing for a long time. Anyways, i recently took on a project with another fellow artist because I personally didn't want to work on a project by my self. The problem i had with them was not turning in the pages on time for me to edit and color since it was almost like a shared project although he was getting paid for some of it. And when i would ask them about it they would just make comments like "i'll get it done" but never really did.

i know this is a bit different from what you are asking but when working with someone its important to establish solid ground rules or a contract. if not you will find your self going round in circle and eventually it's going to be almost impossible to get hold of that person and the job wont get done.