beautiful book cover design

How To Make Money Online as A Book Cover Designer (Legitimate Methods That Work)

Friday, November 10, 2017Teenchips



UPWORK:


1. Use a freelance site such as Upwork to find clients who are in need of a book cover designer. Here are a few tips:


  • Make sure clients are verified (this label should be next to every client you propose an offer to or else you won't get paid accurate or something will most likely go wrong)
  • Create enticing proposals (or pitches) that relates to their brief so you have a higher change of being hired.
  • Have a stunning portfolio to show off. 
  • Be aware that Upwork has a 20% fee. 




FIVERR:
2. Create an ebook cover gig at fiverr. You don't have to limit yourself at $5 for a book cover design. $5 is the bare minimum that you will do so you can charge extra for detailed book covers, or book covers with stock images, and illustrations. Here are a few tips:

  • Have a stunning portfolio to attract clients to click on your gigs
  • A video about what you offer can help boost your sales
  • Give excellent customer service for repeat clients
  • Give a surprise bonus to first time clients (like a mock up for promotional use or something)
  • Watch out for scammers or evil buyers. Would you like to know the signs to spot them right away? Click here. 
  • Be aware fiverr takes a 20% fee (even from tips), and takes 2 weeks to release your payments



THE BOOK COVER DESIGNER:


3. Sell premade book cover designs at The Book Cover Designer. Set a reasonable price to see more sales (nothing outrageous like $800 for a ready made cover. Save that for custom work). Here are a few tips:

  • $60 - $100 seems to be a sweet spot. I have sold a few book covers for $200 - $300 but that happened once in a blue moon. My regular sales come from ready made book covers priced at $60 - $100
  • Have sales, and discounts at 10% off sometimes to increase your sales
  • Work on a variety of popular genre such as romance, young adult, etc. These sell very well. 
  • Be aware that The Book Cover Designer has a 30% fee so...if you sell something for $50 you get $35 back.




99DESIGNS:
4. Join contest sites like 99DESIGNS, and win some cash prizes. Here are a few tips:

  • Have your ID ready since you need to prove proof of address, and that you are who you say you are (driver's license, state ID, etc). You have to be at least 18 years of age.
  • Never submit copyrighted images. 99Designs has partnered with Adobe stock so you can go ahead, and use those stock photos when submitting to book cover contests. 
  • Sell, and pitch your thoughts and ideas when submitting book covers as this may help sway the buyer to choose your entry. 
  • Be aware that you are competing against hundreds of other talented book cover designers so there's a high possibility that you may not win. Many designers get upset when they lose, and ultimately give up. Other book cover designers basically make a living with 99Designs making a few thousand of dollars per month from one-to-one projects (yes, if the client loves your work instead of continuing with contests they may choose you to be their go to designer. Many from 99designs make an income from repeat clients without contests). 
  • Report designs that steal your unique concept. If a design you submit (one that is not generic) is the only one of its kind, and then out of nowhere is copied back to back by designers you can report all of their entries, and their designs will get taken down. If they get too many reports their accounts get shut down. Reporting designs that steal your idea can be your best friend. 
  • Also be aware that many people hate crowdsouring contest sites due to the fact that there is only one winner so if a contest has over 200 designers submitting only one wins (unless the contest holder has a boat load of cash, and rewards every entry with a bonus win). If you try 99Designs it's at your own risk. Don't join if you believe losing multiple times poorly affects your mental health as overtime many become desensitized to losing.  
  • Prizes vary from $130 to $450+
  • If you want to learn more about winning 99Designs Contests click here!










DESIGNCONTEST:




5. If you're younger than 18 years of age you can alternatively try DesignContest. Here are some tips:

  • Mainly the same as 99designs except no ID verification, and no Adobe stock partnership
  • Don't join if you believe losing multiple times poorly affects your mental health as overtime many become desensitized to losing.  
  • There are no one-to-one projects
  • Be aware that you get paid on Fridays as well (one time it was every other Friday for me)






START YOUR OWN THING:





6. Sell book cover design services, and premade book covers on your own website. Here's a few tips:

  • If you don't know what you're doing (you don't code, devolop your own website, or know someone who will do all of that for you) use wordpress. 
  • Watch tutorials on getting started with hosting (there's hostgator, bluehost, etc), and wordpress
  • Get a free professional theme (or paid theme if you want to invest), and set up some pricing tables
  • Use a payment shopping cart plugin to get paid (paypal or stripe)
  • Get an invoice plugin to create professional invoices for your clients
  • Get a contract set up or set up a terms and conditions page stating "by purchasing our services you agree to...."
  • Have some friends leave some draw dropping "you have to buy this it's amazing!" testimonials/reviews.
  • Be aware that hosting on some websites come with package deals (2 or 3 year hosting) that can cost you a total $200 (this is discounted for those years). You can alternatively pay a month to month fee of $10 + but you will lose more money in the long run as opposed to paying $80 - $200 for 2 or 3 years. 
  • Be aware that you will be spending so much time marketing yourself it is ridiculous. Start with work of mouth. Keep your prices reasonable. When you build good clientèle upgrade your prices, and charge a premium to make a steady income. 




SELL DIY BOOK TEMPLATES ON SOCIAL MEDIA:
7. Sell DIY book cover templates with the image design, but as for the text the author do it themselves. They can freely use their imagination the customize the look of their title, subtitle, and author name. Here are a few tips:

  • You can sell the JPEG image itself (manipulated of course. Don't sell a stock image you just bought as it see it. Upgrade, and touch it up a bit). 
  • Promote the image with place holder text on social media
  • Use a site like gumroad or selz to sell the ready made templates
  • When a user purchases they money goes straight into your gumroad or selz account
  • You need an audience to sell to so make sure you frequent author forums, and the like
  • Be aware that gumroad charges a 8.5% + $0.30 fee, and pays every other friday. Selz limits you to 5 products at a time, and a 2.9% + $0.30 transaction fee. Choose whichever you feel comfortable with. You can also offer services with selz. 



SELFPUB BOOK COVERS:





8. Sell beautiful premade book cover designs at SelfPubBookCovers. They have a great social media following so you do not have to market your book covers or anything of the sort as they will mainly be doing that for you. If you want to get buyers on your own feel free to do so. Here are a few tips:

  • You need to combine 2 stock images for it to be unique 
  • You get paid via paypal so get a paypal account
  • You need a cover with text, and a version without text
  • You need to create book covers with two resolutions (72 ppi for web, and 300dpi for print)
  • You absolutely must sell your book covers via Selfpubbookcovers exclusively. You cannot sell them anywhere else if you are selling them through here. 
  • If you sell a book for the minimum of $69 you get $50. If you sell your premade book covers for more than $69 then you get hit with the 70% royalty phase


Put your money where your mouth is. Where is the proof?

 Many websites, and blogs tell you to try this, or that without doing it themselves. They tell you based on what they heard others say while they don't even know what it's like to begin with or if the sites they mentioned even work as they have never done it themselves. 



I myself have tried all the methods listed above (self pub is currently in progress as I just got an interested buyer today...I'll keep you guys updated on the payment process).

These are not scam sites. At teenchips we're all about the proof. The receipts. The money. If you guys want receipts we have receipts. 

 Keep in mind we have removed transaction IDs, and confidential customer information with "blank or white spaces."

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Payment from 99designs for book cover design contests:





Payment from upwork for book cover design service:



Payment from fiverr for book cover design service:



Payment from gumroad, and book cover designer for premade book cover designs:




Are there more sites to earn money online as a book cover designer?
Yes, there are way more sites, but I found out that some were scamming on the down low. Another site took 80% of the earnings without telling designers, and was without a doubt unprofessional in terms of transparency so of course I couldn't add that one to the list. No scammers allowed!

 If you guys know of any more ways or websites to use to earn money online designing book covers then drop a comment below or share your experiences with the sites above. 






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