Wondering what are the book cover design prices for self-publishing authors in 2019? This post is an overview of current pricing ranges for Custom and Premade Book Covers and why there are different price tiers. This post is not about telling you how much to spend on a cover though, it’s just for education and awareness of different options. Let’s dive in!
General Price Range for Custom Covers (Photomanipulated, non-illustrated book cover)
Cover design currently ranges from $5 to$4000! Again, not talking about custom Illustrated covers (prices are higher for those in general).
Yes, some of these prices are nuts! Both extreme sides of it, are not what average indie author should concern themselves with – low-end is designers who don’t care about copyrights (like Fiverr) and high-end is for the big Publishing companies.
You can see probably the world’s most expensive cover designer who charges $3750 here. It’s a mind-blowing price. But he gets clients!
The Super-Low-End of Fiverr:
First, unrealistically cheap covers are coming from Fiverr marketplace. Often the Fiverr designer’s portfolios feature work from other designers online. They are stealing designs to show in their own portfolios.
A lot of them also use questionable stock images (free ones that get overused) or it’s not clear where they get the image from at all. So from a copyright perspective, if you work with Fiverr designers, be sure to request proof from where they get their stock photos and the terms that apply to them.
Think about it, how can they even afford one stock photo if they only get paid $5? Stock photos cost more than that and for a complex book cover, you will need more than one.
The Low-end that can work:
$50-200 per Cover.
That’s the lower-end for freelance designers who are actually taking this craft seriously and not as part-time hobby. The catch is, the designers here are either very new and just start to build up their portfolio and experience or designers who are stuck in intermediate skill level (warning: design skills don’t necessarily improve proportionately to time spent in the industry – 10 years in design does not mean designer is better than Intermediate).
Sometimes you can get lucky here and find a good designer who is just starting and just wants work but their skills are already World Class. That’s a Steal! Rare and won’t last long (as the designer will be raising prices as time goes). If you can find that deal, great.
The Middle
$250-600 (often includes print cover version too, but often the price is for ebook first)
This is the range where the best value-for-price seems to be. It’s the place where the designer can charge rate that pays their bills while doing something they love, and where indie authors don’t have to overpay inflated rates.
There are also quite a few designers here so competition keeps prices similar, without driving them up. The most common range seems to be $250-500. Print cover versions can be additional $50-150 (so if ebook cover costs $299, print+ebook would be $349 or $449).
Now, $600 for a book cover is expensive. For indies, it’s considered Premium. Not many indies should spend that much and most won’t benefit much from that. But this is not to take away from designers. It just takes longer to get Return on Investment for the average author.
In general, some absolutely awesome designers can be hired here (like Bookfly Design who I would personally call currently the best designer for indies at the moment). They could easily be making covers for big Publishers and make 2-4x but choose to work with Indies (as working with huge Publisher comes with dealing with Marketing department’s opinion, who often don’t know design and start telling you what to do.. Which can be an irritation…). So lower price than $1000 per cover makes sense for designers who want more creative freedom and no interference.
It’s also the place where choosing between designers might be the hardest. There are many good designers and some lame ones, so for authors, it can be hard to choose. Not to mention that it’s hard to tell design skill levels as authors have not been equipped to judge designer’s skills easily.
To pick a designer look at their articles on the blog, social media to see their personality, even ask questions in emails, as those give you more personal context on how it would be to work with them.
Also, pay attention to differences in what is offered for each price, some designers have a lower price but deliver less initial concepts of design or limit the use of stock photos (only one per cover etc). Others have a higher price and seem more expensive but they work faster (first concepts in 3 days instead of a week etc). Some add bonuses, some don’t. I add 3D mock up cover for free, others don’t. Some charge more for a print version, some less. For more on hiring the right book cover design read these tips.
So the cheap price may not be so cheap once you add it all up, or expensive one may not be as expensive as it seems at first sight.
Refunds and Kill Fees
Most common thing is to offer 100% refund. Terms may vary, but it’s rare for Indie designers to have Kill Fees (think of it like Deposit that doesn’t get paid back, the designer gets paid for some work, but not all of it). Check if the designer you want has any Kill Fees before you hire.
Highest-End (and some crazy prices)
This is where covers cost $1000-$2000+. That’s a common rate for cover designers working with bigger Publishing companies. It can be argued that it makes little difference from previous tier design-wise, but there are some designers who are definitely worth that (and for books with a big promotional budget, cover quality makes an even bigger impact on ROI since they spend more on ads which means cover has bigger impact).
Not many indies go this route. Not an easy thing to afford.
Some good and well-known designers here would be Chip Kidd and Isaac Tobin.
Premade Book Covers
A more recent option for indies has been Premade Book Covers. They are cheaper than custom made covers, often as good if the designer has high skill level.
Why are they cheaper? Because we designers can make them easier, faster and with complete freedom creatively so there is less work hours-wise. Many Premades are cover concepts that were not used when the cover was being designed for a custom order.
There are designers who specifically focus on Premades and only make whatever covers they want to match the needed genre. This is a great freedom to have, thus an attractive option for us designers.
Their average price is currently around $40-80 (per ebook/front cover) but the whole range is from $15 to $200. It can get into 300-400 dollar price for covers that have more digital illustration and designer puts in much more hours in with painting details that make cover cooler (common in genres like YA, Urban Fantasy or Scifi).
Just as with Custom Covers, extremes are not what’s most used. Super cheap Premades will come from amateur designers (who also have lower custom cover prices too) and most expensive ones better be super good covers (aka. not just stock image + text slapped on it). It’s hard to justify big prices for premades if they are not illustrations or intricate manipulation work.
The prices have been rising last few years, sometimes due to stock photo price increase. Tough to say if they will keep rising. I don’t think they will since marketing books is getting harder and harder so cover costs can’t go up all the time.
But in any case, Premades are a good option!
Conclusion
This article is not meant to say, you must pay X rate for a book cover. This is an overview, something to know and use as context when judging cover designers. Some pay more, some pay less. Some people boast about getting the cheapest deal, and others about buying Premium etc. It’s personal preference and we live in a great age for self-publishing, where anyone can find a designer for their budget.
P.S. For more tips and advice on how to hire the right cover designer, read this about 12 Things to Expect from a Cover Designer.
I’ve been looking at your book covers for quite some time – since I started writing the book I’m still working on, hoping to see a cover that expressed my book because your premades are so reasonably priced. I haven’t found one yet. I have a vision of what I want the cover to be. I found a digital artist whose work impressed me and he agreed to do the artwork. Recently, because of personal issues, he told me he wouldn’t be able to do it. So I’m back to looking again. Your article provided a good explanation of the different pros and cons of toes of designers and what they charge. To get a good feel of types of covers authors have chosen I have looked at many book covers author’s at book sites. Some are good and some aren’t. Are they interesting or look slapped together. I know the cover can make or break your book because it is the first thing a buyer sees. It has to create interest. It should tell a story and relate to the book. Colors matter. I’ve given a lot of thought to my cover. I should be able to hang it on my wall as a piece of art. I also want to use the cover to brand other items in addition to the cover.
I know you get what you pay for. If an author’s book is important to him/her and not just a badly edited, run of the mill romance or detective story, (I’ve “tried” to read many of these books) then any old cover won’t do. There are as many inexperienced editors as there are book cover designers. A new author needs to do a lot of homework to know how to choose wisely. Unfortunately, it often comes down to cost.
Hello!
Glad it can be of help. Feel free to ask any question about this or about some designer’s skill level. It is possible to get very very affordable cover but it takes ‘hunting’.
And editing is the same. I know as I need it(and have no skill for it). 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing a great information. I appreciate your time and effort in your work. Keep posting.
Thank you!
Hi! I felt the need to comment here as a self-employed illustrator. $3750 is NOT an outrageous fee for a book cover design. A lot of work goes into illustrating a cover design, including multiple rounds of edits and the book will be printed thousands if not millions of time with no royalties paid to the artist. Not to mention, that designer is also including ownership rights of the image in that quote. I appreciate you needing to sell your own business but you don’t need to call out other artists as what NOT to do and diminish their pricing which you know nothing about.
Maybe you should realize this article talks about Photoshop covers and not Illustrated covers…
Carly, this article is not aimed towards authors whose books will have a large print run. It’s aimed at authors who will be lucky to ever sell 10 copies of their ebook.
To give you an idea, look at any book on Amazon that shows a sales rank of 1,500,000 or above.
That book is selling about one copy per YEAR. It’s probably priced at around $2.99, and IIRC, the author gets almost $2 of that. So if they paid as much as $100 for their art, they can cover that on book sales in about 50 years.
Great information that you are posted on your blog. I will be back for more updates. Keep it up.
Love this post. Prices are so high for book illustrations.
Yeah, handcrafted work is worth it! 🙂
Someone I know wants to use a watercolor I did a few years ago for the cover of his book and offered me $40. Isn’t that a little LOW?
Yeah, that’s a bit low. Esp. if it would be exclusive to them. If you add some text too, or need some more tweaks, then for sure it’s low.
I'm writing a book about a man who was one of the first (maybe first?) US soldier to land on Omaha Beach on D-Day and need a cover.
Hi,
awesome! Quite a history-making person he would be! We’d be happy to help with the cover. If you have more questions we can email you to discuss more privately and see if we can work together.
Adrijus
I have a new author who's written an amazing western fantasy book well… quartet of a series …
I need a book cover artist ..i have a sketch of the EXACT cover picture I want ..
Hi!
Happy to help if you’d like us to do it. Our prices are stated on this page:
https://www.rockingbookcovers.com/pricing-services
Feel free to email me through Contact form and ask any question!
Excellent article. I’ve tried premade covers a few times. Not only makes it the whole process much easier (to see your design before paying for it is a great bonus), but it’s also much cheaper than average custom-made covers. I would suggest sites like bookcoverzone.com (which has an excellent system where you can customize your cover immediately and most covers are stunning) and thecovercollection.com (which has some breathtaking designs as well) – on both sites the covers seem to be made by professional designers – which I think is a must. Stay away from the amateur sites though (and there are many of them!). One of the largest sites for premade covers (I won’t go into its name, but you’ll definitely understand which site I’m referring to), is full of crap.
Yes, premades are a fantastic option and just expand options for self-publishing well.
The author specifically mentions that illustrated covers will naturally cost more.