e-book cover artist advice?

[lobster]

I don't suppose anyone is familiar with the deviartartverse (and anywhere else that might be relevant) and commissions? Any input would be appreciated!

I'm looking for someone to do a cover for an ebook in a vaguely pulp-noir-ISH-comicbook-ISH style (in the sense that someone that was good at CoH character commissions might work) and I'm totally at loss on where to start.  Currently just surfing around the net and deviantart at random.

I've been working on some books off and on for years (as some of the Pinnacle crowd might vaguely recall) and, after a year or so of querying, finally decided to abandon the traditional publishing route with my first book.  I'd rather 10 people read it than none.

[Shenku]

I self-published my first book just this past October, and for my book's cover, I ended up creating the cover art myself. It helps that I'm an artist, but I'm not that great with polished illustrations, so my cover might seem poorly done to some...

I agree with your mentality about "better ten read it than none", which is why I went independent. I don't have an ebook yet, just a physical print, but the physical prints are pretty pricey for an average sized novel with the online publisher I used(Lulu.com), so the books have to be pretty pricey for you to get any money from it... So far I've only sold 3 copies, but that's due to poor marketing strategies...

[lobster]

Congrats :)

I would look into e-publishing - at least with Amazon I think it's pretty much free (see https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin).

Sadly I'm even worse at visual arts than I was at playing a blaster pre-50.  I mean like, I have a hard time making stick figures look good.  But I want the cover to actually look attractive, so I think I'm committed to spending a little money on getting a nice one.

[Shenku]

Well, Lulu doesn't cost me any money to publish through them, but they offset that by charging on a per-page basis for any physical copy they print, of which the person purchasing the copy pays that cost. The print copies are all "print on demand", so it costs me nothing for someone to buy a copy, but as I said, the extra cost per-book adds up for those who are buying it.

For my book, just under 400 pages, the cost of printing it is about $23ish. In order for myself or Lulu to get any money from royalties(they only get a percentage of any profit, and nothing if the book is sold at cost; not counting whatever markup there is on manufacturing costs as is...), my book needs to be sold for more than that $23ish. I think mine is about $24-$25, somewhere around that.

Unfortunately, all that said, I've been meaning to hop over to Amazon's kindle market and put up an ebook so that I can have a much cheaper edition available, since $25 plus shipping is a lot of money to invest in a random author people have never heard of... The problem is that ISBNs are expensive, and money has been too tight to purchase one just yet. Another advantage of Lulu.com is they give you an ISBN for free when you publish through them, the drawback being they own the ISBN, not you. If I ever decide to switch publishers, I'll need to buy a new ISBN for every version that's being switched, a rather costly thing to do while I'm still a nobody...

Oh, and if you want, I can try to take a quick crack at making some cover art for you if you need. As I said though, I'm not "zomg über fantastic!", but I can draw/digitally paint with some skill. You can check out my deviant art page(shenku-netsou.deviantart.con) to see if my artwork is the kind of quality you're looking for. (If it's not, that's fine, because as I said I'm not a fantastic illustrator...)

Anyways, good luck with your book, and I hope it does better than mine!

[lobster]

Thanks - your stuff looks way better than anything I could cobble together, but none of it really fits any of the potential "feels" I'm going for.  I have a couple ideas and I'm just digging around now to see if I can find a style that clicks with any of them.

I've been reading up a lot on the kindle stuff and e-publishing lately.  It feels/sounds like the wave has finally hit the shore.   

[mikoroshi]

Responding because I have some feedback but cannot go into detail right now.  So I don't forget... OP, send me a message.  I have worked with a few cover artists and do cover layouts and stuff myself.