Book cover design

The cover is one of those little thing you have to do as a self publish author.

I watched several YouTube videos. I looked at several sites that offer cover designs services. Bookbaby.com listed their cover service at around $600.00. Standoutbook.com listed their cover service at around $495.00.

Using these numbers as a guideline I watched more YouTube videos. Odesk got mentioned several times so I flipped a coin and decided to try Odesk over the others I had found.

Odesk is now upwork.com. Posted an outline of what I wanted as a job offer. Got back a range of bids to do the cover. One was way high. He did good work but the book is barely a novel in length. The payback for the cost of the cover from Bookbaby.com or Standoutbooks.com could take years if the book ever makes any money.

I offered to pay $250.00 for the job, about half of what it would cost at the other services. I got six bids back. I looked at the work each bidder has done for others. I chose the one that had done book covers before in a style similar to steampunk book covers on Amazon. The artist also had done covers with females on the cover. Since I was thinking of having a female on my cover that was a plus. Another bidder has only males on the cover of her works. One had never done a book cover before.

So I chose a person that had done book covers before and they were in a style similar to steampunk covers. The person was a little over the $250.00 offer. I think the artist added the cost of what upwork.com takes as their share/cut to the amount I offered. Simple right. No. I agonized over choosing an artist.

I had a definite image in mind of what I wanted for the book cover, but I am open to suggestions from the artist. I am easy to get along with.

Waiting for the first trail images to come in.

Stay strong, write on.     Professor Hyram Voltage