So I attended a panel at LTUE given by professional artists. They talked a bit about their process for designing a book cover and the collaborative process. I came away with two things. First, a contract with a professional artist for a cover is very expensive and way more complicated than I initially thought. It turns out that they're artists too and they want to get paid for their work. I'd like to accommodate that.
The second thing, the interesting thing for me, was something about collaboration. One of the artists talked about how she will give a client 3 revisions and that's it unless they want to pay more money. But she doesn't go in expecting any revisions. She starts out with a bunch of thumbnail sketches and says, "Which one gives you the feeling you're looking for?" Then she takes that and sketches a larger image. She submits the larger sketch and says, "Is this right?" If not, she makes the changes and does it again. Then she draws the entire image with details and at this point is where she starts counting revisions. But she's communicated throughout the whole process, so most of the time the revisions aren't even necessary.
The point is that she knows when it's time to get feedback, and when it's time to trust in her artistic skill.
As writers we could probably take a few notes from this process. We should be open to changes on our notes or ideas. Even after our first draft we should be asking ourselves (and possibly alpha readers), does this fit my end goal? Most of us don't have anyone to collaborate with, but we do have to make the final call about our own work.
Because when it's done, our name is on the cover. We should accept feedback, but we should also be confident in our skills.
Good luck with your next project. And if you need a cover artist, make sure you're paying them for their work too.
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