Could I have a career in eBook cover design?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I need some advice. Or encouragement. Or a guiding hand.

My life fell into a deep hole a year or so ago, which hit me very hard, and I haven’t dug myself out of it yet. The last time my life got anywhere near this bad the Internet came along and new job opportunities opened up; I was a web designer for a while, but the technology moved faster than I could keep up, and now most of what I can do is available for mega-cheap with CMS products like Squarespace. And then I tried my hand at CG animating, but I only know one piece of software that is not the Industry standard, and when that job ended (through corporate corruption) I didn’t manage to leverage anything further from my limited experience there.

So I’ve been wallowing and floundering since then, and it’s past time to stop all that nonsense. I am not sure what I want to do with my life, but I have been discussing ideas with my Psychologist, and then, out of nowhere, just a couple of days ago I realised a possible opportunity, in a new-ish and growing field that seems desperately in need of people with my skills.

eBooks are very popular for indie publishers right now. Amateur writers can basically make their books available without need for a professional publishing house as their middle man. Yes, they still need an Editor, which many forego and shouldn’t; and yes they still need a marketplace, and there are many; but what they definitely need is cover art that doesn’t look like it was assembled by a ten year old in MS Paint.

As soon as I came up with that thought, I scribbled down some fake book titles so I could put together some sample art. Using some license-free stock photos found online, primarily in DeviantArt, I assembled a series of different book cover styles, just so I could see if I was good at it, how long it would take in terms of work hours, and if people would respond to them.

Here they are: Jane Jones’s Journey; The Flywheel Chronicles; The Blood Red Cycle.

What do you think? Honest opinions would be helpful. The response I’ve gotten so far has been very encouraging, but I don’t want to rush headlong into this.

Looking around, there are many artists around doing this, and managing to make a decent full time career out of it. They don’t charge too much, because like me it only takes them a day or two to make each cover from start to finish, so they can produce as many as four a week. Stock image costs can be included in the fee, and prices will still be affordable: $200 - $300 each. Licenses for stock images are favourable for eBooks, and even small print runs, though it can be a bit tricky for things like posters or bookmarks.

Also I have many friends who, via my filmmaking hobby work, have cameras, costumes, props, etc, and I am reasonably competent at 3D art, so that can mean I could do my own custom images if needs be, though that would drive the costs up somewhat.

Running my own business is daunting and I’m not especially confident about the money and marketing side of things. The art, on the other hand, I am supremely confident about. I think I can do a lot of what they’d be asking for, with ease, and of course would get better at it over time, like any job.

I’m not sure if I should ask other cover artists their advice, as they would be direct competitors. But then again they would have extremely helpful and directly applicable advice.

What are your thoughts? Any advice would be welcome. My initial plan is to dip my toe in, and then let things develop organically, but what do you guys think?

2

Nice artwork! :slight_smile:

Just call it “cover design” and build in the capability to output to print-ready files as well.

3

The problem isn’t cranking out four projects a week, it’s finding four *paying *projects a week. Every week. And competing with everybody else looking for their four paying projects a week.

The conventional wisdom for starting a law practice is that you need a minimum of 6 months living expenses in the bank, on top of whatever your budget is for startup costs. I dunno about artsy ventures, but I suspect it takes at least as long, if not longer, to become profitable.

Sounds like a fun hobby, but you’d probably need at least a part-time job to make ends meet for the foreseeable future.

4

Yes, all images would be provided in print size, web and e-reader size, and maybe thumbnail size, in the appropriate aspect ratio for each (which seems to vary per publisher).

5

Right, that’s the kind of thing I’d have to find at the outset, a good source of indie authors. There are loads of writing groups on social media, so I am hoping that won’t be too big a challenge. Though it might be.

It is, as I said, initially a toe-in-the-water. I’m not expecting $1000 a week starting from day one. But start up costs are almost zero, as all I need is myself and Photoshop, both of which already are in hand, and a source of images. Though I expect there are hidden costs, I hope they aren’t too complicated, and that’s the kind of info I’m after. I’ll also look into taking a small business course.

6

Your work looks reasonably professional but the problem to me is that the barrier to entry is very low and other hobby artists will have the same idea as you and pile on as time progresses. As a hobby for some mad money it might be fun, as a day in, day out way of making a non-impoverished middle class income level living it seems questionable (to me) that you will generate enough cash to support yourself.

7

Isn’t that true of every business venture?

Something is better than nothing. I’d like to ride it as long as it lasts.

8

There’s a motto in business that for the triad of good, fast, and cheap, you can only have two of the three. Most authors want your best work fast, and they’re not willing to pay a whole lot for it. If you get lucky, you can build a business on word of mouth and referrals, but it takes a lot of time to build those sorts of relationships.

Another aspect of doing creative freelance work is that you have to learn how to manage clients, and that can be a time suck-and-a-half. Some are nervous Nellies who demand status updates every two hours. Some expect you to be reachable at all times and don’t respect the fact that you have work for multiple clients, or an outside life. Some don’t pay their bills, or they pay you less than the agreed-upon amount. Some won’t have any idea what they want, but they know that the work you’ve done isn’t it, so they will send it back for changes until it matches what they think it should look like. So if you’re not willing to put up with this, a full-time career is probably not for you.

9

I don’t think this is a bad idea you have, but I do think the part you hope won’t be too big a challenge will be by far the biggest challenge. You work is nice and it’d be a problem if it looked amateurish, but honestly the importance of quality is far outweighed by your talent for salesmanship and ability to network.

10

[QUOTE=astro]
Your work looks reasonably professional but the problem to me is that the barrier to entry is very low and other hobby artists will have the same idea as you and pile on as time progresses.
[/QUOTE]

You can make a lot of money producing semiconductors. Unemployed people looking for a new source of income don’t usually start their own fabs because they cost five billion dollars to set up. That’s what **astro **is getting at with the barriers to entry comment. As you pointed out, there’s virtually no cost to getting started in this.

11

A reasonable barrier to entry is artistic talent, skill, and experience, I hope. Though that does tend to be considerably undervalued by a lot of people, who seem to view it as “easy”.

These are the problems I had with when I tried to be a freelance web designer. The lack of respect for the time and effort it takes to make a website was amazing. And seeking new clients was impossible, I just didn’t have it.

My hopes, thoughts, fingers-crossed, are that once I make connections with indie author groups, and prove I have what they are looking for (and who knows, I may not), added to the low charges I can offer (compared to how much websites cost, for example) might be enough to offset those problems.

I have no idea if I’m right, so I’m prepared for possible failure. I’m generally a realist about these things. But a lot of the hard work is considerably easier than what I’ve needed to do in the past, there’s a certain amount of ready-madeness that takes the edge off. If I do it right, anyway.

12

6 months after I launched the first product I ever brought to market, some company in China released a cheap knockoff. It’s worth thinking about your competition, strategizing how you’ll differentiate yourself. Then you start your business and do the best you can. You can’t worry about it too much - it’s a waste of time.

13

The problem with making any money in the creative space is that the tools keep getting easier to use, the hurdles to “publication” in any form keep getting lower, and the bar of acceptability keeps getting lower. Your average writer using Word can now take a book to publication without needing more than Word-user skill levels.

Which is why about 95% of self-published stuff, 75% of small/indie press stuff and even some notable percentage of big-press stuff is crap, regardless of content. Even a screwdriver needs some skill to use, no matter how easy it is to pick up. Being able to bash out words in neat rows in Word and then hit a few processing buttons will indeed make a Kindle book… but only by the loosest definition of “book.” With no hurdles of quality or style or layout or skill, books produced by a chain of skilled individuals are being drowned in semiliterate babble, laid out like an old-time circus poster and with a cover produced by their 12yo daughter who draws horses.

As covers on books long ago were reduced to sales flyers, and covers on ebooks have somewhat less relevance than the copyright page - they are mostly a thumbnail image to put on the book listing page - I wouldn’t put a lot of chips into making a career out of it. Your entire market will be (1) ebooks that (2) aren’t produced by a major publisher but (3) are produced by someone who values professional-quality components and (4) will pay for a quality contribution to (5) a trivial gloss to the publication and (6) don’t have a friend or family member who can do “good enough” work.

Let me introduce you to Slim Pickens, there.

14

So I guess what you’re saying is “career” is too lofty a goal, and “hobby” should be my aim.

I can live with that*.

*Though not on that.

15

It’s tough enough trying to eek out a living as a freelance graphic designer (I do freelance work on the side, and work as an art director/graphic designer by day). If you limit yourself to ebook covers, it will be many times more difficult. Your work doesn’t look bad at all, but all the challenges of freelance work (dealing with difficult clients, finding a steady stream of work, people who don’t value your time) will be compounded by your limited scope of work.

My advice: ABSOLUTELY do it as a hobby – if you’re good at it, you’ll get more work. If the time comes when you’re getting enough work and making enough money to decide to do it full-time, then do it. But you can’t just decide to start from scratch and do it as a full-time job. I have plenty of contacts and clients, but sometimes my freelance work just dries up for awhile…luckily I have a day job to pay the bills!

16

No, it’s $100-400 you didn’t have before, every time you land a job. But I don’t see it ever being a career - just possibly the big houses have a person or two each who make their living turning out e-book cover art, but more likely, it’s just one task among many in their shrunken art departments, too.

Keep at it, same as any other specialty. Spend time analyzing the actual buyer’s market and build your own rules about what appeals to you on Amazon and BN.com. Keep up the solicitations. It may not pay your rent, but almost any career in creative means having as many tools in the box as possible.

But “career”? No.

17

Hey, Guano. First, I feel your pain as someone who’s been in freelance design and animation for years now. I’ve done cover design in the past, leveraging my graphic design and CG skills for a couple decent sized publishing houses, and even at that, they paid peanuts compared to the effort I put in. The most I could get out of one cover design was $500, and it was largely pieces of work I did entirely in CG with several back-and-forths until it was finally approved.

I’m guessing, just from past experience in everything else graphic design related, working at the indie-level would would be a lot worse. Fishing for indie authors willing to pay even $50 for a nice, professional cover would be rare. I’m betting most would balk at that, so making a living doing that sort of thing would depend on working at a ludicrous volume of which I doubt you’d find enough customers.

That said, if it’s something you enjoy, go for it. It might pay off, or at the least provide some supplemental income, but like most things in this biz, it’s probably a crapshoot that’ll end in disappointment.

18

I know a lot of people who are involved with the indie crowd (be it writer/publisher/designer/artist/whatever). None of them make enough money at it to consider it a career. They all have one or more PT jobs to supplement their living expenses.

For a traditionally competitive market, it’s even more competitive now because anybody with half a brain can publish anything. Many people aren’t willing to or can’t to pay what a work is worth; as a result, a lot of artists undercharge themselves in order to get the work, which in turn lowers the bar even lower. That pisses off a lot of established artists and it’s not pretty.

I see nothing wrong with testing the waters. To me it’d definitely fall more into “hobby” than “career”.

19

Good cover artists are rarer than you might think. I went through about five before I found one who could actually do a layout.

I, or my authors, provide artwork (stock art or photography) to the graphic artist, who turns it into the cover. Can you deal with someone else’s vision?

What about someone else’s constant corrections? I found even designing an invitation for someone else’s party maddening and frustrating. Can you put up with crap when financial stakes are involved?

Are you familiar with Illustrator? What about QuarkPress?

Can you be reliable and have a quick turnaround time?

Are you an artist in your own right? Can you design logos, banners, business cards, etc?

Don’t focus on indie authors. They are cheap bastards and will want to do the work themselves. My genre is full of awful cover art.

This. Your best bet is to find smallish publishers who will use you for all staff design, which might come out to 5-10 books a year per publisher. I pay about $50-75/cover. So… :confused: Sorry man. Your samples are absolutely gorgeous.

20

Thanks for everyone’s insight, but it sure is a disappointing state of affairs. Just when I thought I’d stumbled on a real game changer.

I will definitely give it my best try, though. I have little to lose.

And thanks for the compliments on my artwork, too :slight_smile: That boosts my ego a bit.