Custom vs. pre-made covers

Woollybear

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Hi,

Bunch of stupid questions.

I have a good idea of the cover I want for my novel, and the pre-made options that are out there--the ones I could buy for $69.99 or whatever--they don't fit the bill. I wouldn't be able to do the cover myself, either (no talent when it comes to graphic art).

1. Do I (probably) need to hire an artist in this case? To get the cover I want, I mean.

2. What do I need to know to ask them... Like what would I expect? A back and forth a few times to get what I want? payment on completion? A certain resolution file, compatible with... Adobe photoshop or something? Would any artist also handle font, title placement, spine, blurb... or are all of these things case by case... (Can you tell this is a new area of inquiry for me?)

3. What I want for the cover: An offset (indirect) profile of a woman's face, shadowed. Sort of along the lines of Song and Blood and Stone (in terms of the feel of the profile, not the details of it. I find that cover really stunning, especially for SFF). Are faces trickier than other types of illustration (e.g. worlds, ships, dragons, etc) or is it all equally .... artistic/hard/whatever the word would be?

4. Some design websites... it's hard to tell if their covers are pre-made or not. Their portfolios are extensive, but not 100% clear to me. maybe I'm missing some obvious clues and cues.

5. Can you recommend anyone that you've worked with? Perhaps LMK through DM?

I've bookmarked a couple people from a related thread https://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?251181-Cover-artists-and-designers-seeking-work --so that's been helpful. I thought I'd pipe up to see if anyone has any 'current' thinking on the matter. Design seems to be changing quickly, at least to me.

EDIT: OOOOHHHH. Just discovered that Song of Blood and Stone's cover was designed by Bookfly Design. (Now bookmarked.)

Still curious about questions, but that was so exciting to figure out.
 
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indianroads

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This = J Caleb Design/ is the guy I've used, and have had excellent results. He's really easy to work with.

I found him on Reedsy.com. There are a lot of services listed for writers (Editing, Cover design, Marketing); I suggest you check it out.
 

Woollybear

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Some of the covers in his portfolio look great. I've emailed him.

Hey, does he do the fonts, the layers for you, and so on, and what sort of file do you get back? Would it be easy to play around with the file if you wanted, in photoshop or something? (Like does he maintain layers and so on.)
 

sandree

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I worked with this designer through 99 designs. https://en.99designs.ch/profiles/neptunianart. He was great to work with.

I did a design contest but you don’t have to. You can just contact a designer and work one on one.

He gave me a jpg for the ebook and a CMYK file for the paperback. I can’t remember right now what type of file. You would have to ask the designer if they would give you a photoshop file you could edit.

I wrote a blog post about the 99 designs process I went through. It’s on my website - below.
 

Woollybear

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Great blog post! Those covers (the ones you posted) are all gorgeous.
 

Marissa D

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It's not likely they'll be happy with you fiddling with their completed designs. One big potential issue is that they're the ones who've purchased the licenses to use the stock images that are used in your cover, not you--so you really shouldn't be changing things.

And it varies from artist to artist as to if they'll do the titles and/or spine/back cover for a print edition.
 

sandree

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With the 99 designs process, you have to purchase the image licenses yourself though the artists try to use free images if possible. I don’t know if they would object to someone tweaking their designs. It might depend on the artist.
 
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Woollybear

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I'm mostly thinking I'd want the option to add things--like a review snippet, that sort of thing. Now I'm wondering if I would need to look into that sort of thing before I got the cover.
 

Marissa D

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Oh, adding text is not a problem. I thought you meant tweaking the cover art itself. If you want, you can ask the cover designer just for the cover without text, and have a graphic designer add the title and whatever else in.
 

Woollybear

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With the 99 designs process, you have to purchase the image licenses yourself though the artists try to use free images if possible. I don’t know if they would object to someone tweaking their designs. It might depend on the artist.

I'm very puzzled by the images end of this too. Do the artists use stock images, somewhere, from some pile of images? Is it possible that the images on some book covers would be on other covers too?

I mean, I guess i thought the artists would be hand-drawing or some such thing. (I gave my daughter the option to do this for hire. :) So far she's been too busy.) But now it sounds like cover artists use digital art, and photos and digitally altered images from online. Do some artists use a hand-drawing approach?
 
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KBooks

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Robin makes my covers:

https://www.gobookcoverdesign.com/getting-started

She's great. As for stock photos, she has you go through a site like Dreamstime and pick stock that you like and she makes your cover from those images (you buy the stock.)

It's possible another author somewhere out there could use the same stock as you to make their cover, but personally it's not something I'm losing a huge amount of sleep over. There is the option on some images on Dreamstime to purchase all rights to the photo so it's yours. I've never done that because $$$, but if you're worried about it, the option is there.
 
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Marissa D

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There are many stock photography sites out there, and yes, images get reused and can appear on multiple covers. And yes, some artists do original art for covers (or do a photo shoot for original photography)--but that costs a considerable amount more than covers created from manipulated stock photography.
 

KBooks

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Thank you! (all credit to the talented Robin)
 

indianroads

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Some of the covers in his portfolio look great. I've emailed him.

Hey, does he do the fonts, the layers for you, and so on, and what sort of file do you get back? Would it be easy to play around with the file if you wanted, in photoshop or something? (Like does he maintain layers and so on.)

I get jpgs for the cover, used for the kindle version. He gives me a pdf of the front+spine+back cover, used for the paperback.
 

Woollybear

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Very excited to be making progress (and having a better understanding). Thanks again everyone--and yes, the covers all around are beautiful.