Advise on pricing my work

[u/Zwitter_Draws]

Hello! A few months ago many authors started to be interesed on my art for their covers and merch. I didnt had any experience in that field at that time so I gave pretty accesible prices.

Maybe TOO accesible I am affraid, now I am getting more requests than I am able to manage to take, so I am considering to raise my prices but I am not sure if it's apropiate and I don't have any other place to ask 😅

Currently I am charging $440 usd for the bigger pack that I offer (it's a full cover desing, an art piece that can be used for page inserts or art prints and a bookmark desing, both sides) and it takes me 24 whole hours to complete, divided in several days ( I got the exact time info from ClipStudio Paint). The price also includes commercial licence for everything, printing files, editable files and mockups.

The illustrations are 100% digitaly hand drawn.

For the full cover alone I Charge $220

The front cover $150 (same with 2 characters illustrations)

And for the Bookmarks $30

I try to keep my prices low because I know getting money it's really difficult so I am worried to loose some clients because of that. But I am starting to feel exhausted already, and I am booked for like 2 months still 🫠

For you as an author $500 for the bigger pack will be affordable?? I am even thinking on making it $550

I have seen bookcovers alone (not hand drawn) go for $600 so I am not really sure about the pricing for this

Just a few notes before I go:

- The full pack pics were not allowed in the thread because of the level of nsfw they had, but I can show in private

- English it's not my first language, so if I don't make sense XD it's because of that

- I entered the book cover desing marked by accident 5 months ago, so I am super new in this space. I have been taking courses online but I don't have any career for it

- On the other hand I am an experienced digital artist that have been working as such for +7 years

[u/bioticspacewizard]

No. I work in publishing.

Typography is everything. If you can’t get that right you’re just an illustrator, not a cover designer.

[u/malheurmae → u/bioticspacewizard]

Hmm, yeah, I'm sure you do. Your position is one that approves or critiques cover work? You work for a publisher who only accepts first submissions and immediately calls any needs for revision as an amateur? Cutthroat there...

Only the back panels on the 1st 2 cover examples had BAD typography and that is easily fixed. You're putting zero value into the art and 100% into typography (on 2 examples), and failing to acknowledge that asking for a different font type and size can be a single revision request. Additionally, I'm quite anti-thin, narrow, and wispy cursive fonts found in trad and on many popular books, personally. They are very difficult to read (NOT because they're cursive), yet approved all the fucking time. I went to a bookshop event for upcoming releases 2 weeks ago and kept having the same thought.

Book cover artists are still iustrator (typically) at the heart of it. There were many compliments from readers om the front panels for the first 2 books by the way, excited to buy printed versions at Monstererotica, btw. I don't see a lot of positive comments on this sub in general.

I work in a different type of printed artwork, but my area is art that is specifically ONLY meant to draw in customers and then be easy to understand. It's not the same, but typography IS very important, but not the ONLY or MOST important thing lol.

[u/bioticspacewizard → u/malheurmae]

This isn’t a cover that someone has commissioned and can revise. These are examples this designer is putting forward as the best examples from their portfolio.

If this is their best foot forward, then we can only judge their work on what they’ve shown, not some hypothetical future revision,

[u/malheurmae → u/bioticspacewizard]

I meant in terms of your very harsh, cutthroat superior publishing company that you work for. Also, some authors like shitty typography and if it is what the client wants, then that is what they get. You can clearly see better typography on the other examples, including the bookmarks. Also, everyone starts somewhere and most people's first few works in their portfolio are not as strong as the later ones, which will eventually be replaced with more work. Once again, hard to fathom that you aren't accounting for any of this while in the industry.

You also aren't acknowledging that OP's pricing is very cheap for cover art AND extended licensing rights for an author. Even if OP increases their pricing a bit, they will be still on the lower end of pro-pricing, fitting within their current level of expertise. Their work is better than actual amateurs, period.