Covers for ZAMP: Too Cheap To Be Good (?!) - Part 2 of 3

If it's too good to be true, it probably is. But maybe not...?

(The first part of this series can be found here.)

This is the second part of my saga looking for cheap cover art for my self-published book, Zombies Ate My Poodle! (lovingly called Zamp in the Whye household).

When I asked the online writers’ group for suggestions (“I’m broke but I need a cover!") someone suggested a site called GetCovers.com so I headed over — and almost left right away because the pricing options were so cheap.

How cheap? They started at $10 and went up to $35 - whaaat? There’s NO WAY you can get a decent cover for that price, right? But then I started looking at their portfolio and decided that “gambling” a few bucks might be worth it. (And since they have a 100% money back guarantee, it wasn’t much of a gamble.)

I went for the top of the line $35 package (whoo, big spender!) because I wanted the source files, but didn’t splurge on any of the add-ons they offer, such as a web site banner, bookmark, etc. After I paid they asked me a bunch of questions about my book, and then a few hours later I received an email with a few more things they wanted. So there was a little bit of back-and-forth, but not bad.

When they asked me for ideas on what I was thinking for the cover and I explained what I’d been thinking about, they came back with something along the lines of, “you probably want custom illustrations for something like that, not stock photos” and sent me a link to where I could get that done. For a couple hundred bucks. Nope, too poor for me right now.

I replied and said I couldn’t swing it, and asked them to just do the best they could. And basically gave up hope on getting something usable.

Boy, was I wrong!

Five days later (I didn’t pay extra for the 1-day service, because, poor) I received an email with links to the files — ebook cover, print cover, source files, etc. It was not what I expected at all — here’s the print cover (back of the book on the left):

I really like it! Of course, I am firstly comparing it to the traumatizing poodle picture that the AI generated for me, but this looks like a real book cover. We’ve got some action there with Zak running for his life through the neighborhood, some zombies in the background, but not bloody and gory, etc.

This could be the new cover for Zamp, but maybe not…

Because someone else in the writers’ group contacted me and offered to create a cover for much cheaper than they usually charge — more than $35, but so much less than I thought I’d have to pay.

So the day after ordering the cover you see above, I told the guy to go for it. After all, at that point I knew the GetCovers people would be doing stock photos/art, and wasn’t expecting much. (Have I mentioned that I was wrong?)

I’m still waiting for that third cover to arrive, so I’m not making a decision on how Zamp will look until I get that. Part three of this series will introduce that cover and tell you the winner and why I chose it.

---

PS - I’ve played around with the Midjourney AI a bit more and while I’ve given up on it for anything related to zombies or poodles, I did get some promising cover art for a different book of mine. I’ll post about that in the near future.