Freelance Designers
You're going to need a freelance designer if you decide you want to self-publish your book. Publishers will use their own in-house staff or they will hire freelancers to design the dust jackets and covers for their books. But you never know when you'll want to get business cards or postcards made with the cover of your book on them!
One suggestion--often in-house designers will do freelance work. Take a look at a book cover you love. It will list who designed the cover more often than not. You can usually contact that designer directly at their publishing house, but sometimes they will have their own websites or a presence on Linked In. These are the people who you know are professionals. Yes, they may be expensive, but while your high-school kid neighbor will be a lot cheaper, they're not necessarily going to be experts in the programs, or know what makes for a successful cover or not. If you are an author and you are reading this, be mindful of the fact that authors generally have THE WORST taste in covers. If you don't do it for a living, don't try to become a cover designer overnight. I've been in hundreds of cover conferences and discussed covers with hundreds of authors, so I'm speaking from experience. And yes, I've art-directed quite a number of covers in my day. It's not that easy.
One suggestion--often in-house designers will do freelance work. Take a look at a book cover you love. It will list who designed the cover more often than not. You can usually contact that designer directly at their publishing house, but sometimes they will have their own websites or a presence on Linked In. These are the people who you know are professionals. Yes, they may be expensive, but while your high-school kid neighbor will be a lot cheaper, they're not necessarily going to be experts in the programs, or know what makes for a successful cover or not. If you are an author and you are reading this, be mindful of the fact that authors generally have THE WORST taste in covers. If you don't do it for a living, don't try to become a cover designer overnight. I've been in hundreds of cover conferences and discussed covers with hundreds of authors, so I'm speaking from experience. And yes, I've art-directed quite a number of covers in my day. It's not that easy.
