If you’re an author getting ready to invest in custom illustration for the first time, you’ve probably asked yourself this question: do I start with a book cover, or with character art?
Both feel urgent. Both feel expensive. And most authors only have budget for one at a time. So let’s break down how to think about it, no wrong answer here, just different priorities.
The Case for Starting with a Book Cover
Your cover is the first thing a reader sees, on a shelf, in a thumbnail, in an ad. It’s doing marketing work before anyone reads a single page.
Commission a cover first if:
- You’re actively publishing or about to launch
- You need something to put on Amazon, IngramSpark, or a preorder page
- You’re running ads or building a mailing list and need a strong visual hook
- You only have budget for one piece of art right now and it needs to work hard
A strong cover can carry a book on its own. Readers judge quickly, and a professional, hand-drawn cover signals “this book was made with care” before they’ve read a single line.
The Case for Starting with Character Art
Character art doesn’t sell books directly, but it does something a cover can’t: it makes your world feel real, first to you, then to your readers.
Commission character art first if:
- You’re still deep in drafting or revising, and want a visual anchor for your cast
- You want to build hype on social media or with your newsletter before launch
- You’re planning a series and want consistent designs locked in early (so every future artist, including us, gets the details right)
- Your readers are the type who fall in love with characters first, think romance, fantasy, or serialized fiction with a devoted following
A lot of authors find that seeing a character rendered accurately changes how they write that character. It’s not just marketing, it’s craft.
The Honest Answer: It Depends on Your Timeline
If you’re within a few months of publishing, lead with the cover. If you’re mid-draft and building an audience slowly, character art often pays off first in engagement and motivation.
Either way, one thing matters more than which piece you choose first: consistency. If you know you’ll eventually want both a cover and a full cast of characters, it’s worth commissioning from a studio that will use the same artist for the same characters every time. Style drift between pieces, a different face shape on your heroine in the cover versus the character sheet, is one of the most common regrets authors have when they piece together art from different sources.
You Don’t Have to Choose Just One
If budget allows, a bundle is almost always more efficient than commissioning pieces one at a time — you save on the overall cost, and everything is designed together from the start so nothing feels mismatched.
A few starting points:
- The Debut ($500) — Two half-body portraits, one couple illustration, and one scene. Great for authors who want to introduce their main cast.
- The Cover Story ($550) — A full cover plus two character busts and a couple illustration. Our most popular package, and a solid middle ground between “just the cover” and “the full cast.”
- The Romance ($700) — Cover, full couple illustration, and a scene, built for romance authors who want their central relationship front and center.
If you’re not sure which fits, that’s a completely normal place to be. Tell us where you are in your writing and publishing timeline, and we’ll help you figure out what makes sense to commission first.
NexArt is a clean, hand-drawn illustration studio for authors and writers — 100% human-made art, always. Get a quote or start a commission →