David Meredith's Blog - Posts Tagged "finding-cover-art"
How to Find the Perfect (CHEAP) Art For Your Book Cover
You can’t tell a book by its cover… But most people DO!
Let’s face it, cover art is important. Especially as a new author, if you have a blah book cover you might be dooming your masterpiece to obscurity before potential readers have perused so much as the acknowledgements. Cover art is the very first thing that readers see. It’s the thing that determines whether or not they pick your novel up off of the shelf or click the enlarge button on the website. It is the first, greatest hook. It can also be incredibly expensive.
There is no shortage of sites that offer the whole package. “We’ll let you choose your cover art from over X000 selections and do all of the cover design for you! You can also sign up for our ultra-super-mega-primo promotional plan for an additional fee, so all you have to do is sit back and wait for the money to start rolling in!” they cry in big, bold print, “Millions of satisfied customers!” Unfortunately, even with thousands of prefab choices, your book cover will still be just that, a slightly tweaked, prefab template that will be incredibly similar to dozens if not hundreds of other books by authors who also used the same service. Most of these promotions don’t come anywhere close to delivering everything they promise and these too can be quite pricey, so what’s an aspiring author to do?
Well, of course the easy answer is to use and abuse your friends. If you have friends who are talented artists and are willing to help you, they can be an excellent resource. Be sure you explore every option and connection you might have among your friends, acquaintances and professional contacts. Be assured that other authors competing with you for readers are absolutely doing the same.
However, this is not always a viable option. Maybe you aren’t best buds with a budding Monet or Rembrandt. What then?
This is the dilemma in which I found myself when I was trying to get my debut novel, The Reflections of Queen Snow White, ready for publication. The first thing I did was go online and hunt for some art that I thought appropriately represented my concept. The actual site I went to was Elfwood.com, but there are other sites where budding, young artists can post their work (Deviant Art, is another major site for artists, but you can find a more exhaustive list here: http://www.website-creations.org/our%...). Now first of all, let me be clear – YOU CAN’T JUST GO ON THESE SITES AND STEAL ART!!! However, what you can do (what I incidentally DID do) is search for already completed art that is the same subject/theme that you are looking for and then contact the artist about acquiring the rights to use his/her work for your cover and promotions. Most artists are pretty open to making a deal with you, I’ve found.
Sometimes you can get artwork for free in exchange for just mentioning the author’s name and website/contact information in the acknowledgements of your novel (artists, just like authors, are struggling for recognition and exposure - anything that helps get their work in front of more eyeballs is a benefit to them and this is essentially free advertising), but more than likely they will ask you to pay something. However, what you will have to pay for rights to an already completed work (with perhaps a little haggling) will undoubtedly be MUCH cheaper than what you would have to pay for a commissioned piece. (Even among relatively unknown artists of any ability or talent a commissioned piece can run anywhere from $500-$800, and better established artists can charge MUCH more.) Artists posting their work on these sites are generally on these sites because they are new and emerging artists. They expressly want to gain as much attention for their work as they can and every book you sell, every review site that you are featured upon, will be that many more people who see it. Most artists don’t mind scoring a little quick cash either and you buying the rights to a piece of art they’ve already completed is essentially free money for them. They don’t have to make anything new. All they really have to do is draw up a quick half page contract detailing the price and exactly how you are allowed to use their work and then e-mail you a high definition electronic copy - easy for them, cheap for you.
So how can you be sure that you get exactly what you want? Well, I suppose the short answer is that you can’t really, but you can get pretty darn close. Something to keep in mind is that there is an AWFUL lot of art out there. Especially if you are willing to put some time into a thorough search, it is highly likely that someone somewhere has painted or sketched your basic concept already. Of course, having said that, much like self-published novels, there will be a great deal of mediocre tripe that you have to struggle through to discover the gems. A lot of the art you will find will be flat out garbage, but if you are open to doing some digging you can really save yourself a lot of money and still score some quality cover art for your book. I feel like mine turned out pretty well.
In any case, good luck to all of you in your writing/promoting endeavors and I hope I’ve helped shed a little more light on this one challenging area of self-publishing. Until next time!
(P.S.: If you are interested, the artist I dealt with for the above cover was Matt Hughes who operates out of Atlanta, GA. You can find more of his work at http://www.matthughesart.com/)
Let’s face it, cover art is important. Especially as a new author, if you have a blah book cover you might be dooming your masterpiece to obscurity before potential readers have perused so much as the acknowledgements. Cover art is the very first thing that readers see. It’s the thing that determines whether or not they pick your novel up off of the shelf or click the enlarge button on the website. It is the first, greatest hook. It can also be incredibly expensive.
There is no shortage of sites that offer the whole package. “We’ll let you choose your cover art from over X000 selections and do all of the cover design for you! You can also sign up for our ultra-super-mega-primo promotional plan for an additional fee, so all you have to do is sit back and wait for the money to start rolling in!” they cry in big, bold print, “Millions of satisfied customers!” Unfortunately, even with thousands of prefab choices, your book cover will still be just that, a slightly tweaked, prefab template that will be incredibly similar to dozens if not hundreds of other books by authors who also used the same service. Most of these promotions don’t come anywhere close to delivering everything they promise and these too can be quite pricey, so what’s an aspiring author to do?
Well, of course the easy answer is to use and abuse your friends. If you have friends who are talented artists and are willing to help you, they can be an excellent resource. Be sure you explore every option and connection you might have among your friends, acquaintances and professional contacts. Be assured that other authors competing with you for readers are absolutely doing the same.
However, this is not always a viable option. Maybe you aren’t best buds with a budding Monet or Rembrandt. What then?
This is the dilemma in which I found myself when I was trying to get my debut novel, The Reflections of Queen Snow White, ready for publication. The first thing I did was go online and hunt for some art that I thought appropriately represented my concept. The actual site I went to was Elfwood.com, but there are other sites where budding, young artists can post their work (Deviant Art, is another major site for artists, but you can find a more exhaustive list here: http://www.website-creations.org/our%...). Now first of all, let me be clear – YOU CAN’T JUST GO ON THESE SITES AND STEAL ART!!! However, what you can do (what I incidentally DID do) is search for already completed art that is the same subject/theme that you are looking for and then contact the artist about acquiring the rights to use his/her work for your cover and promotions. Most artists are pretty open to making a deal with you, I’ve found.
Sometimes you can get artwork for free in exchange for just mentioning the author’s name and website/contact information in the acknowledgements of your novel (artists, just like authors, are struggling for recognition and exposure - anything that helps get their work in front of more eyeballs is a benefit to them and this is essentially free advertising), but more than likely they will ask you to pay something. However, what you will have to pay for rights to an already completed work (with perhaps a little haggling) will undoubtedly be MUCH cheaper than what you would have to pay for a commissioned piece. (Even among relatively unknown artists of any ability or talent a commissioned piece can run anywhere from $500-$800, and better established artists can charge MUCH more.) Artists posting their work on these sites are generally on these sites because they are new and emerging artists. They expressly want to gain as much attention for their work as they can and every book you sell, every review site that you are featured upon, will be that many more people who see it. Most artists don’t mind scoring a little quick cash either and you buying the rights to a piece of art they’ve already completed is essentially free money for them. They don’t have to make anything new. All they really have to do is draw up a quick half page contract detailing the price and exactly how you are allowed to use their work and then e-mail you a high definition electronic copy - easy for them, cheap for you.
So how can you be sure that you get exactly what you want? Well, I suppose the short answer is that you can’t really, but you can get pretty darn close. Something to keep in mind is that there is an AWFUL lot of art out there. Especially if you are willing to put some time into a thorough search, it is highly likely that someone somewhere has painted or sketched your basic concept already. Of course, having said that, much like self-published novels, there will be a great deal of mediocre tripe that you have to struggle through to discover the gems. A lot of the art you will find will be flat out garbage, but if you are open to doing some digging you can really save yourself a lot of money and still score some quality cover art for your book. I feel like mine turned out pretty well.
In any case, good luck to all of you in your writing/promoting endeavors and I hope I’ve helped shed a little more light on this one challenging area of self-publishing. Until next time!
(P.S.: If you are interested, the artist I dealt with for the above cover was Matt Hughes who operates out of Atlanta, GA. You can find more of his work at http://www.matthughesart.com/)
