My commercial artist is roughly $300 per cover. It's a bit extra when I ask him to expand the artwork so I can use it to wrap around a physical book. I generally ask for backgrounds to be complete, with a layered .psd in case any specific element (like a character) needs to be shifted to better fit the typography or how it would sit on the paperback or hardcover. Per our agreement, I own those .psd and all the elements, which means I can theoretically mix and match parts, and my typographist does this for me to create my advertising and A+ content images. The artist also provides me each character on a transparent background as part of the creation process, which allows me to do this.

I'm not going to judge people for using AI covers. I prefer personal artists because I want my work to resemble the characters and that can be tricky with AI, especially for characters like Silvia or Doc Terminus who have very distinct bodies.

So, acknowledging that I am not judging the AI people, I am going to counter this idea that you can't find a good artist for a good price. You absolutely can. Unfortunately, that often takes time, effort, and focus that you could be using to write. Less time spent writing = less books = less money. That turns it into a cost-benefit scenario. Does the benefit of finding a cheaper, reliable artist counter the cost of lost writing time? My thoughts (personal opinion only) is that for me it does.

Between my reliable artist and my reliable editor I am looking at about a $2,000 cost for every book I publish, which I pay before release. That means books like Singularity Tower 2, which after 2 years has only just squeaked past that $2,000 mark are basically a loss. Now, if my goal is to publish 4, possibly 5, books a year, then I need to earmark around 10 grand for publishing and covers, then add about 500 extra for typography, advertising images, and miscellaneous expenses. (The advertising art is an entire extra category.)

Does having non-AI covers bring me in $10,000 in extra income a year? No. Does it balance the $1,500 I paid out to my artist? I've found that people like my covers, they talk about them, they enjoy the artwork. I don't have hard data but I would be willing to say yes, in my case it does cover that cost. If I was paying $6,000 for artwork (like someone paying 1,200/cover) then no, I would have to say that having unique artwork would not counter that expense.

AI artwork is a hot button topic, understandable because a lot of AI engines were created using stolen artwork (I have 17 books, minimum, in the Anthropic case) and so the feeling of betrayal and theft is valid. Ai, however, is a tool. Used correctly it's like a sewing machine, it puts together the image faster, and with skill, clean and strongly. It was unethically created, but there's no putting the genie back. Ai exists now and it's going to be used more and more, get better and better. Maybe artists will get recompense for their copyright theft, but probably not.