Nathan Bransford - The Forums

The importance of a GREAT cover design, one that entices the reader, that shows or hints at the story elements or mood, is constantly being impressed upon us.

Even when we,ourselves, may have a visual talent, it may or may not be the right one for our own book.

If anyone here has worked successfully with professional cover artists, this could be a great forum resource for sharing information about such talented professionals.

I for one, would appreciate anyone's recommendations and positive experiences with any book cover artists, and possibly even what to expect in costs.

Personally I can suggest you one of my friends and former colleague, Gyula Havancsák (Jules). You may find many samples on his homepage.

http://www.hjules.com/

He is a really trustworthy guy and he has a brilliant imagination. He is used to create book covers (i.e. he did some Anne Rice and Lovecraft book covers), band covers, computer game covers, etc, etc... I rarely suggest friends or former colleagues to anyone, but he is one of the very few that I bravely suggest to people when we're speaking about covers.

That's an interesting link, Guardian. Do you know what kind of a price range someone would be talking about for this artist? I would imagine there would be significant time involved in creating original art like that.

bcomet, in general (very very general) you are looking at $100-$600 for a good cover, depending on any number of factors (use of stock photos, hand-drawn art, manipulation of the images, etc). My personal advice would be to plan on spending around $300 for a nice cover using stock photos. The more added detail (supernatural effects on a fantasy cover, for instance), the more expensive it will be. Of course there are plenty of people who get a family member or a graphic art student to do their cover for $50, but...it usually shows.

All the prices are used to change project by project. As far as I know the same applies in his case too. Most of the graphic artists are used to tell their salary after the requirements are being told to them (I also work on this way, when someone is requesting an art from me. My prices are also ranged from 50-100USD to up to the stars and beyond. It's depending on the project.). Artists usually don't have a fix price as every art is requiring different methods and different approach. So, it's the best if you ask the artist directly.

Thanks Guardian. Gyula Havancsák (Jules) is an awesome artist. Those are fabulous covers.

And thanks to all.

I had thought that $300. might be a starting point for cover design, while shopping around, but then I heard 2,200. from one designer,
which I assume is way out of the ball park for most writers if they are doing it/paying for it themselves.

It is helpful to have resources and support!

It occurred to me that this question might come up for a lot of the writers on this forum too.

bcomet, I can't recall what your genre is, so I'm not sure if the resource I have in mind would be helpful. If you are interested in finding a good cover designer, let me know and I might be able to point you toward someone. You'd probably be talking something in the $200-300 range.

Hey, Guardian, who did the artwork for your WEB Site, (Grace, specifically) I remember that being just plain amazing. Was that you, or Jules?

wordranger wrote:Hey, Guardian, who did the artwork for your WEB Site, (Grace, specifically) I remember that being just plain amazing. Was that you, or Jules?

Grace was created by me. But Jules is better artist than me (At least in my opinion. This is why I suggested him.). But the new CSA website will have more of my arts, around 12+ (The present website is just temporary with the final design scheme and the final official logo.).

As a writer with an extremely limited budget - do you know anybody who works on spec?

lvcabbie wrote:As a writer with an extremely limited budget - do you know anybody who works on spec?

Yep. Me. Send a PM with your budget and your specs (Genre, deadline, layout, your idea, etc, etc... ), then I'll see I can help with it or not (My second profession is graphic artist). Your specs are necessary as my schedule is a bit full at the moment, but maybe I'm capable to take one art project too (Depending on your specs).

Payment is accepted via PayPal. If you want, I can send you a link where you can check few of my arts.

I have a vivid picture in my head of the cover art that I want, but I am not good enough to do it myself. I would gladly pay a reasonable amount if I could find an artist talented enough to do what I am after. It needs to be someone who can pull of realism, though. When I scour the net looking for artists, most don't do realism well. Often they do parts of it well, but there are bits that are off.

Guardian wrote:

lvcabbie wrote:As a writer with an extremely limited budget - do you know anybody who works on spec?

Yep. Me. Send a PM with your budget and your specs (Genre, deadline, layout, your idea, etc, etc... ), then I'll see I can help with it or not (My second profession is graphic artist). Your specs are necessary as my schedule is a bit full at the moment, but maybe I'm capable to take one art project too (Depending on your specs).

Payment is accepted via PayPal. If you want, I can send you a link where you can check few of my arts.

Thanks for the offer. Right now I'm trying my darndest to sell the works to an agent or publisher. But, if after a couple of months, I don't get a bite, I might try Kindle/PubIt! and will need covers.

knight_tour wrote:I have a vivid picture in my head of the cover art that I want, but I am not good enough to do it myself. I would gladly pay a reasonable amount if I could find an artist talented enough to do what I am after. It needs to be someone who can pull of realism, though. When I scour the net looking for artists, most don't do realism well. Often they do parts of it well, but there are bits that are off.

What sort of realism do you need?

Thanks for the offer. Right now I'm trying my darndest to sell the works to an agent or publisher. But, if after a couple of months, I don't get a bite, I might try Kindle/PubIt! and will need covers.

You're welcome. You know where to find me.

If money is an issue, you might consider contacting an art teacher at the local high school and ask if they can run a contest to design your book cover. You'll have to provide some guidance on what you are looking for. The person who told me about this had done it with success. You get book cover art for free and the kids have a great time competing to get their cover design on a book.

Bee Hylinski
Author: "Contract Year: A Story about Love and Baseball"
Baseball blog: http://contractyear.mlblogs.com

beebee723 wrote:If money is an issue, you might consider contacting an art teacher at the local high school and ask if they can run a contest to design your book cover. You'll have to provide some guidance on what you are looking for. The person who told me about this had done it with success. You get book cover art for free and the kids have a great time competing to get their cover design on a book.

The problem with this, you can be sued as the rights of the cover always will be the creator's and they never get any pay for it. Plus, there will be no legitimate contract between you and the creator, so the creator of the art still own the rights, regardless you say it's yours as there is no valid agreement between you and the artist. So personally I would drop this idea in your case, because it is rather illegal than legal. There is no such thing as free, only if a friend of yours or a family member is willing to do it for free. However you can make this idea legal if the artists are going to sign a contract where they're giving all the rights to you... but I don't believe that anyone would work for free and would give the rights of their arts to someone because of their pretty eyes.