Beware of Fiverr Artists- Life Rant

THIS IS MY EXPERIENCE! I am sure there are some fantastic artists on Fiverr, and there are probably a lot of great experiences to be had. But I tried several cover artists, and they were all horrible. It was a waste of time and money. This is blog #8, August 4th, 2022. Seriously, beware of Fiverr artists.

I initially wanted a cover for The Adventures of Rel Rel Lost Mirror, since I will be self publishing it soon. I have come to grips that I am not a designer, and my handmade covers aren’t professional enough in design and style to work as a legitimate book. I’m at peace with that. And I am totally fine paying for a cover.

The 1st Artist

I SEARCHED FIVERR. I look up reviews and found an interesting seller. The art was decent, and I felt like the artwork could complement Lost Mirror nicely. The art wasn’t as polished as I’d like, but it would do for my purposes.

THEIR ARTWORK:

I contacted them, and they were kind. But this is what they gave me. It was just a traced-over version of the cover that my brother created for Hand of Rel: Horsemen of Paper! They even copied the hands, the hair swoop, and poorly added a yellow and purple tank top. I was like are you kidding me?

I asked for a revision. I was told that they’d put their best people on it. I guess they were a group and not an individual? Okay, I was willing the give them a chance. Maybe it’d be better.

THESE WERE THEIR NEW SKETCHES: 

Sigh. In the end, I added my own changes. My changes are in RED. These changes were supposed to be reference only! Reference.

But they traced over that too. And in the end, gave me this. It’s an okay copy of my work, and the colors are all right. Still far from what I was expecting. I accepted and paid just to end the project. I was horribly disappointed. If I wanted my own artwork, I would have drawn the cover myself.

The 2nd Artist

I SEARCHED FOR ANOTHER ARTIST. On Fiverr. I was hopeful. I found another artist that I was expecting great things from. I was pretty impressed with their work. I thought that a cover

like this would be awesome! So I contacted them.

THIS IS THEIR PROFILE ARTWORK:

AND THIS IS WHAT THEY GAVE ME:

I was shocked at how bad this turned out. This is not even on the same level as what is shown on their page. This seller told me that if I wanted a cover like the ones on their gig page, I needed to pay over $200. Okay, while that makes sense since I believe covers are really expensive, this was not mentioned on his page. Anywhere. At all. And he insisted that is why the quality was so bad. Yeah. Okay.

This cover was terrible and unacceptable. I paid for it and left it at that. But I still had hope.

The 3rd Artist

I found another seller. This time, I found an artist with an excellent illustrative style. The art looked nice! I was hoping this would be the cover I’d been waiting for. I thought this was it!

HERE IS THEIR REFERENCE ART:

AND THIS IS WHAT I GOT:

Are you kidding me? They just used my own artwork and Photoshopped it poorly! I was furious. I wasn’t about to pay for another horrible cover design. I told them straight out that this was unacceptable and not good enough. They apologized and said they had issues and hired a new artist. This was their work.

They were ashamed, apologized, and canceled the gig. I started looking again.

The 4th Artist

I found this artist that used real photos and manipulated them into covers. They said that they’d give me a rough design, and I could decide to pay for it or not.

HERE ARE THEIR REFERENCE COVERS:

THIS IS WHAT THEY GAVE ME:

I was like, no, thank you. This is not acceptable, and I left it at that and moved on. I was like, are you serious? I just wanted a decent cover!!! I was so irritated and done with people on Fiverr. But I tried again. I mean, I figured I had to hit at least one decent artist, right?

The 5th Artist

This seller had some decent covers. I liked the silhouette designs. So I contacted them. I gave them my artwork as reference and said I wanted a silhouette cover.

THIS IS WHAT THEY HAD ON THEIR PAGE:

THIS IS WHAT THEY GAVE ME:

I was fed up. I was so done working with people on Fiverr. No more. They just photoshopped my artwork, redrew Rel badly, and added clip art of a shark! And this seller had the audacity to say that the cover came out this way because I wanted them to mimic my artwork and that covers couldn’t have that much color. It was MY fault because I didn’t give them enough detail to do the job. I told them SILHOUETTE in the beginning.

I wrote back and asked to cancel the order. They did. But then backtracked and said they could do a silhouette cover. They sent me this new design and asked if this was what I was looking for?

Utterly f***ing terrible. She just filled the artwork, quite crappily I might add, with solid color. So below par that I was pissed off for the next few days. I’m still so freaking angry about all this. No, hell no, this is not what I was looking for. I had already canceled the gig, so I didn’t write back to them.

Closing Thoughts

I SHOULD HAVE STOPPED SOONER. Right after the first artist, I should have said no to Fiverr art gigs. But I thought they couldn’t be all bad? I didn’t have the time, patience, or money to do it again. Never again.

I started looking on Reedsy, but some artists asked for $200-$1000. One even said that their base for a cover was $5000. Whew. So $200-$1000 seemed to be the base price for a cover, which is why Fiverr was too good to be true.

I eventually got into contact with an artist on Instagram. I’m working with them on a cover for The Adventures of Rel Rel Lost Mirror. I trust them. And I will debut the cover soon.

THANK YOU SO MUCH for reading! I’ll be back with another entry soon. You can check out my artwork on Instagram, read my stories on Kindle Vella, and Wattpad, or buy them on KDP. Please give them a look!

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Stay creative, keep pushing forward, and I hope you continue to find inspiration. Till next time, please take care, God bless, and you rock! Bye~!