Thread: Who designs your cover when you self publish?

I've been thinking about this for a while and I wanted to bounce my thoughts off of this community.

Where do people go to have their book cover designed when they've decided to self publish? Whether we like to admit it or not many people judge a book by its cover. I think it's important to have an eye catching cover. I'm an artist myself so when it came time I did my own design, photography, and illustration.

For those of you who want to self publish, do you think there's a market out there for someone like me to design and illustrate fellow writer's covers? Do you think it would help in the self publishing endeavor?

I want to be clear that I'm not offering my services via this forum. I'm not in a position to officially do so at this point...I'm researching the idea and asking for input from writers like you.

Thanks for the advice!

I think you can commission professional artists. But first you will want to see their portfolio to see if their style matches what you want before you ask them to start, because regardless if you like it or not, they will need to be paid for their time. Try deviantart.com they have a lot of artists there professional and students, who are really good, some not so much, but you can look though portfolios to your hearts content and they might be cheaper than someone who is established.

Or you can look at royalty free stock images from sites such as corbis.com or gettyimages.com and make something from those images after buying the rights, price depends on the use I think.

That's the same thing I am planning to do when I print up a few personal copies to share with family, mostly for proofing. Deviantart.com is the best place I can think of.