About a week and a half ago, I decided that part of my lackluster sales record might have had to do with my cover. My old cover, for the sake of reference, is here.
I made this cover myself, with some help from my wife as photographer. I kind of like parts of the cover, but to the extent that it's any good, it appeals mostly (and possibly only) to history buffs, which is not my only target audience.
So I decided to look for a professional to create a second incarnation of the cover. After finding people who would charge $100 or $200, I was almost going to give up. I think that part of the reason these folks charged so much was that they were illustrating their own images.
Instead of using these illustrator + graphic designers, I found a freelance graphic designer, Rachel Olson, who was willing to charge $30 for a cover design plus $5 for each stock image we used. For mine, we used two stock images, which she chose in consultation with me, so that my total price was $40. Personally, I think it was well-worth the price, since what I got from it was the cover below.
I made this cover myself, with some help from my wife as photographer. I kind of like parts of the cover, but to the extent that it's any good, it appeals mostly (and possibly only) to history buffs, which is not my only target audience.
So I decided to look for a professional to create a second incarnation of the cover. After finding people who would charge $100 or $200, I was almost going to give up. I think that part of the reason these folks charged so much was that they were illustrating their own images.
Instead of using these illustrator + graphic designers, I found a freelance graphic designer, Rachel Olson, who was willing to charge $30 for a cover design plus $5 for each stock image we used. For mine, we used two stock images, which she chose in consultation with me, so that my total price was $40. Personally, I think it was well-worth the price, since what I got from it was the cover below.
This was the finished product, and it actually only took about 5 days from when I made the initial inquiry, and about 2 or 3 days after my final commitment to decide that I'd have my cover done with her. This could have gone a bit quicker, I think, if I had been able to respond to her as fast as she was able to respond to me, but I couldn't because I couldn't respond during work hours. Overall, she is fast, professional, and as you can see from the result, she's good. You can find the her website here. http://nosweatgraphics.weebly.com/ As a bonus, she added a free promotional image. I'm not sure how long she's going to be giving this offer, so get it while it's available. You can see my promotional image below. |