Quote:
Originally Posted by calvin-c
$2,000 was mentioned as the cost of cover artwork earlier, and countered by a reply saying that artwork could be had more cheaply-so I'd like to offer my own experience, with a non-profit that ordered a 'concept' painting to promote a new project.
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Interesting experience. However, it was not what I was referring to when I suggested cover design as costing $2,000+.
As with everything else there is more to cover design than just slapping image and text together. The better cover designers actually read the manuscript to get an idea of what the book is about and try to create original artwork/design that reflects or captures the essence of the book. The best designers get a lot more than $2,000 and are well worth their price.
Why? Think about your book buying experience at your local bookstore. A book has to compete for your attention with hundreds of other books that surround it and so it must grab your attention quickly. It is the cover that does this (or doesn't). If the cover doesn't encourage you to pick up the book, you will not read the jacket copy to determine if it is a book that might interest you, and you won't open the book to scrutinize the text.
Covers are a book's first impression and the book only has a few seconds to make a good impression. That is what you pay a cover designer to do -- grab a prospect's attention. You could be the most brilliant of authors -- perhaps the greatest author of all time -- but if no one buys your book, no one will ever know. And as people buy your books, the cover becomes less important because your name increasingly becomes the driver of sales. But until that point in time, you need to grab the prospect and the way it is done is by the cover.
Additionally, a good cover designer asks about how the book will be marketed and who the target audience is, and takes that into consideration when designing the cover so that the design can fulfill multiple needs.