Does anyone here do commissions professionally? Any advice for someone just starting out

[Leyelle]

Tips, warnings, etc. Any and all of the above would be helpful

[KevinReijnders]

Don't undersell your work. It's easier to lower prices than to raise them.
Make sure to include rules for revisions and describe the steps you will take in the process.
Ask cash up front (~50%)

[Kelheor]

Also be aware of the gazillion scam bots asking you for a commission of their son/pet/son and pet for hundreds of dollars.

[Leyelle]

i've received tons of those lol. I've learned to recognize them, fortunately

[rayrichardsauthor]

If you're trying to get commissions from authors, price your work at fair market pricing based off the time it takes you to make the cover. I'm in cover artists FB groups shopping around for a good artist to do my cover. For premades, people are selling covers for $200-300 USD and the quality is often similar to Canva templates. They LOVE to nickel and dime for services, like $50-$250 USD to resize a cover/get a new cover format, $50 for additional edits, etc. One artist wanted to charge $250 for the marketing rights to a cover and to get a full cover with background, props, and 2+ figures - they wanted about $1200 USD.

Definitely value your time, but if you're willing to work within a limited budget, it'll help

[Leyelle]

noted

(20 characters)

[GothickangelStudios]

...Really?? Wow.. Premades? I have a graphic and digital media background. I do my own including creating my own typography and logos. I priced mine through the decades differently. I actually went online and would look up the average price others in my currency and skill level and style were charging at the time.
All those scams out there I keep getting on FB and IG too. The NFT ones are still circulating too.
And Ive been mucked over a few times with payment so Ive adjusted my contracts through the years as I learned.

I didn't know people do shady stuff like Canva cheap for that price.
I have a strict digital paperwork contract which includes how much up front after mocks, etc. Some clients want freebies of here revize the whole design like tons of times. So I have it broken down in a clause in my contract how that all works.
I have not done comic or manga covers for people though. Making booklets, brochures, etc Yes.

The only time my prices go crazy is logos for commercial use. Just part of the legit business stuff.
But for illustrations, etc The client owns the OCs, etc.
Id just charge for print set up friendly mode extra. Bleedlines, safety areas, if they want it set for CMYK for print. Typesetting fonts for proper clean letters.
Or else its just RGB net colours.
Illustrations then if custom logo is added or certain text. Need to be lined up for a net template takes time too. But its much cheaper than print off ready,
For me custom illustrations have to do with complexity and what other elements is used and if print or not. Mine range from $140 to about $300.
I use InDesign, Canva Pro, PS and Clip Studio Paint. Illustrator sometimes for converting from RGB to CMYK.

[rayrichardsauthor]

Oh yeah. It's a big "cottage industry" on Facebook. A graphic designer makes a FB group and starts to churn out premade covers. Once it's sold, they'll change the title, add the other's name, and maybe do some minimal changes for the author. They sell premade covers and come up with "deals" for custom covers, so an author could spend thousands on a cache of book covers that they'll never use. One photographer even sold pictures of hunky shirtless dudes for romance novel covers.

It's part of the reason AI images are so popular in the indie publishing space. With AI and a basic knowledge of Canva, you can hobble together a decent cover for pennies. I'm in a lot of writing groups and the writers using AI covers say they're using them until they can save up enough to hire the artists they want. If they don't, their only options are bad handmade covers, Fiverr/"artists" trolling writer groups looking for clients, hundreds for premade covers, hundreds to buy model photos, and hundreds to pay for an artist.

[Lensing]

This one is kind of obvious but that´s a trap that I stepped in big time:

Have a portfolio with a limited amout of styles and work that you
are good at and enjoy doing. The customers can see what you
can do and what you are good at and then either hire you or not.
When you don´t have that then you´ll have a lot of customers who
don´t know what they want, want everything, have a lot of changes
etc. This also can happen when you do have a portfolio but then
you can still tell the customers to look at your portfolio and choose
the style. It will save you from a lot of trouble

[GothickangelStudios]

Thats so sad and frustrating. But I understand trying to do what you can when your starting out with limited budget or none at all. I actually don't judge on skill if a writer does their own cover. I care more for the storytelling. But I get it, they want to look good for the work they are proud of and share it to the world.

I get alot of people have me doing Dungeon and Dragon character concept art asked in my style for their groups campaigns. They own their OCs. Including the copyright. I just charge for the project.
I didn't know there was a niche in the market for cover art. Ive been wanting more variations in my portfolio. I might try it sometime if someone not a bot or scammer asks.

Yes portfolios are important. There are many free website hosting with shared domains out there like wix, weebly, etc. So it would be like wix.mysitename.com. Many have website builders for people new to website design.
Sometimes people just steal art from other peoples public social media accounts and put them on their own. Some are run by scammers. So many also look for personal sites to a validate were it came from.

[rayrichardsauthor]

Thats so sad and frustrating. But I understand trying to do what you can when your starting out with limited budget or none at all. I actually don't judge on skill if a writer does their own cover. I care more for the storytelling. But I get it, they want to look good for the work they are proud of and share it to the world.

It's a tough game because if you don't get the right cover, your stuff doesn't sell.