Commissioning Art for Your Book
Most people judge a book by its cover. It's the first thing they'll see, and it should give them a sense of what to expect inside. If you can't clearly communicate the title and genre with your cover, it's likely your readers will be disappointed with what they have purchased. Astute readers can easily recognize when a book uses a cover creator with stock footage, which is an easy indicator to weed out authors who don't invest some money into their book. While I certainly started with these cover creator covers, I've made an effort as time goes on to try and commission art for the covers of my books.
A few months ago, I wrote about some of the costs associated with self-publishing a book. One of these costs is hiring an artist to create art for your cover. While this sounds simple, there is a process that you'll need to follow. Sometimes it's so exciting to see the art...