How Much Should a Book Illustration Cost?
filed in Book Cover Illustrations and Artwork on Jul.05, 2012
Stranded Angels - science fiction book art by illustrator Duncan Long
Self publishing authors and indie press operators often wonder what the illustration rates paid by big publishers of books and magazines are. Fortunately the answer to that question isn’t a big dark secret these days.
In fact the industry rates for magazine and book illustrators are pretty standard (and sadly have not gone up much over the last few decades — good news for self publishers and small presses wanting to hire pros, not so good for the illustrators). The pay ranges vary according to the complexity of the artwork and the skill of the illustrator. Also note that the prices below are for only the right to use the illustration in a publication one time (additional rights dictate higher prices):
- $250-$500 for a small illustration within a text layout
- $500-$750 for a half page illustration
- $1,000-$1,500 for full page inner illustration
- $2,000-$3,000 for a two-page spread
- $1,000-$3,500 for a cover illustration
It should be noted that for text layout, embossed covers, wrap-around covers, and other additions and complications to an illustration, there are additional charges. The above rates just apply to a basic illustration.
Graphic novels generally see lower prices per picture (otherwise the creation of these books would be cost prohibitive). In fact, one might argue that graphic novels by and large are a labor of love. That said, for a professional job a publisher can expect to pay $250 to $1,000 per page depending on the complexity/style of the artwork.
Finally, big name illustrators often expect double or triple rates for their work. However publishers find these extra costs often pay for themselves due to increased sales to fans of the artists’ work.
(Here’s a little bit about my rates and more details on the process of creating a cover if you wish to hire me to handle a book or magazine illustration project for you.)
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Writer / artist Duncan Long has worked in the publishing industry for several decades, wearing a variety of hats from editor to illustrator. You can see more of his artwork at: Duncan Long’s Online Art Galleries.
July 8th, 2012 on 3:35 pm
It is kind of you to write that price table down.
As I see it, the problem pricing illustrations is that art is all subjective. Market standards help but are still just guidelines. May I quote you: “$1,000-$3,500 for a cover illustration”. Hell, that is 2,500$ of subjectivity!
Basing prices in time spent (i.e: billing per hour) may help setting the price, but I would say people prefer to pay based on results rather than time, which seems to be the “hidden basis” which some professionals use to give a price. There are lots of horrible products out there that took much time to produce, so by the time standard they should be more expensive than products that were developed quickly and work.
A big problem I see with subjective products is that people has a hard time agreeing with the prices. Someone tells a system administrator: “I need a server infrastructure to do X and Y and Z”. Then the sysadmin calculates how much time is that task going to take, silently sets a price per hour and gives a 3,000$ tag. The customer screams in pain with the price, because it seems (from his ignorant perspective) it is a trivial infrastructure to set. The reality is that the sysadmin would take 150 hours to do it, so the price may be right, but the customer subjectively thinks the result cannot be that expensive.
At the end, prices are set in a very arbitrary manner, be it in IT or horse trading.
July 10th, 2012 on 10:00 am
Richard: Thanks for the thoughtful post. You raise some interesting points — certainly to some extent the product’s worth is subjective. Yet I suspect that if we were to place the cover artwork produced by an artist charging $300 to do a cover alongside that of an illustrator charging $2,000, most often there would be no problem telling which is which. Sure, there will be exceptions, but on the average I think it is pretty much a case of the customer getting what they pay for.
I do believe you’ve made a mistake in assuming “$1,000-$3,500 for a cover illustration… that is $2,500 of subjectivity!” Quite the contrary, that is $2,500 for a lot of extra work with a complex and hard-to-paint cover. The price spread reflects what additional work will be needed to create the final book cover illustration.
If the job is less work, then that’s reflected in the lower end of the price scale. Of course estimating what the actual amount of work will be is somewhat subjective given a client may dictate additional changes. But even so, all of this is pretty “measurable” after an illustrator has turned out work for hundreds of book covers..
One might argue that within art market in general sets prices in a somewhat arbitrary manner (though I suspect most art dealers would argue the contrary). But with illustration work, prices are quite consistent across the board whether you’re working with large publishers or small self-publishing authors.
July 16th, 2012 on 8:49 pm
Thanks for this info about hiring a book illustrator. And what beautiful work you’re doing, too.
July 18th, 2012 on 2:45 am
Thanks, I needed this information. And you’re a fantastic book cover artist. May be using your services one day soon.