In this monthly column, we pose your questions to an expert in a specific field of speculative fiction. This month, artist Jenni Coutts tackles questions asked by BFS members in our dedicated Discord channel.
Note from the editor: Yes, you might notice that this month we’re not talking to Laura Bennett from the Liverpool Literary Agency. I promise it’s with a very good reason! These columns have proven so popular since we started them in January 2024 that we’ve decided to broaden the scope. Not everyone in our community is seeking an agent; our members cover the full depth and breadth of all things speculative fiction. So we’ve broadened things out and will be putting questions to a designated expert in a different field every month from now on. Keep an eye on our social media at the start of every month for news of who that month’s expert will be, and jump into the members Discord server to ask your questions.
This month: SFFH Artwork, with Jenni Coutts
Name: Jenni Coutts
Website: jennicoutts.com
Specialism: Art
Location: Glasgow
Follow: Instagram @jennicouttsart
Jenni Coutts is an illustrator, speculative fiction writer and GP based in Glasgow, Scotland. She won the British Fantasy Award for best artist in 2022 and was nominated for the same in 2023 and 2024, with artwork featured in both UK and international publications. She is shortlisted for this year’s BSFA award for best artwork. She is art editor for BFS Horizons and is art lead for the World Fantasy Convention in Brighton in 2025. She was shortlisted for the Scottish New Writer’s Award in 2019 and has had multiple short stories published. In her free time, she enjoys boxing, weight lifting, and chilling with her cat Smudge.
Why are artists so damn cool?
Good question. I think you’d need to ask an artist who is actually cool for an answer about that!
What are the current trends in cover art styles that you can see dropping off soon?
Balancing beautiful art and cover trends is a challenge for anyone working in the industry. Covers are designed to communicate to readers that this book is for them, so keeping within genre conventions is quite common, but can result in a lot of books looking identical / hard to tell apart.
I think a trend that might disappear soon is more muted minimalist colour palettes. I’m seeing a big trend towards big, bright, blocky colours, either that or a lot more artwork being used on covers than before, rather than just plain minimalism. I think it’s because there is recognition of the desire for beautiful books, not just a plain functional cover. Even the more minimalistic covers still make use of vibrant, fun colours that are beautiful in their own right, and these more minimalist covers also look good small when on an instagram feed or kindle list.
What exactly do I need to make sure I have so that I own the art that is used on my covers?
Interesting question. So, it depends on whether you’re referring to an exclusive licence, or owning the copyright to the artwork – these are two very different things, and there is a significant cost difference.
Most of the time, indie authors and smaller publishers chose to either commission artwork, or license existing artwork from an artist’s portfolio. If commissioning, this costs more, because of the labour required from the artist.
At the end of this process, you have a piece of artwork for your work. By default, the artist owns the copyright to that piece of artwork (even if it was commissioned based on the writer’s intellectual property) – if you want to purchase this, this can be very expensive (depending on the artist), but can stretch to thousands of pounds. This is out of the budget of most smaller scale publishers and authors.
Instead, most opt for an exclusive license. An exclusive license is a contract signed by both parties regarding use of the artwork – for example, a standard exclusive license I use for many of the indie publishers I work with will say something like:
“Client may use on front and back cover of TITLE in all formats of print release including digital ebook, as well as for all promotional materials relating to the release of TITLE, including bookmarks, posters, and other promotional items, giving full credit to the artist Jenni Coutts. This does not include use on titles that are not related to TITLE or other follow up works without prior consent from the artist. The artist agrees to the client having exclusive use of this artwork for use in work related to TITLE.”
Non exclusive licenses are cheaper, but mean that you might not be the only person using the artwork.
ALWAYS mutually agree the usage contract and sign in writing before any work begins or money changes hands. When talking, always be specific about what you want – if the artist or client isn’t happy, you can always chose to work with another instead, but set expectations at an early stage. Note, wording of emails is important – under English and Welsh law, emails can sometimes be considered a form of contractual agreement if the terms are specific enough, an offer is made, and accepted by another party – I’d encourage you to look this up!
What other art things in terms of merch (stickers, bookmarks etc) do you think would be good to use alongside a book itself in an ARC launch?
Everyone loves a freebie! And cute / gorgeous / beautiful merch is always a real bonus for many readers. In addition, art prints and bookmarks for giveaways can really build excitement in advance of a launch.
I’ve also seen authors create pins, which then have the bonus of your readers wearing them and giving you free publicity! Merch should be actually related to your work though – the best merch feels like it authentically represents your work. So if you’ve written a bleak cosmic horror, a cute squid plushie probably isn’t the best way of marketing your work.
(Pictured: The Lovers, original pen and ink drawing by Jenni Coutts)
Any tips when working with an illustrator on how to communicate what it is you would like? As a non-artist it can be really hard to know what’s realistic, what language to use to convey the vibe, and how to politely ask for changes. How do we write them a good brief, then modifications basically, in a way that won’t be annoying or come across as ignorant + any tips on finding people to work with?
So a few of the following questions are covering the commissioning process! Instead of answering them all individually, I’ll do my best to answer them all here.
First, before you get to the commissioning point, do a little research on what covers you are drawn to, and reflect on why – what is it that jumps out at you? Is there something all of your favourite book covers have in common? This step is really important for both figuring out what the current genre conventions are, and also figuring out what your personal preferences are. It can also help you hone what concept you might have in mind.
Once you have more of an idea of what you like and don’t like, the next step is finding an artist. There are lots of ways of finding cover artists who work freelance – you can try illustration agents, or search the internet (places like Behance / Fiverr). Take your time to really look at an artist’s portfolio – does their style match what you have in mind? Because if not, there is very little point in approaching them. You can also find artists by looking inside your favourite books, usually on the first few pages.
Okay, so you’ve got an idea of what you want, and have found an artist – what’s next?
Next, you should write a cover brief. I’ve had wildly varying cover briefs, anywhere between three lines, and five A4 pages. What each artist might want can be different. For me personally, the more information you can give me the better – if you have a specific concept in your head, write it down, or scribble a sketch (you don’t need to be good at drawing, stick figures are also fine!). If you aren’t sure which of several ideas might work, just mention that, and a good cover artist can go through this with you to help you figure it out. Good things to include are:
- If you want character art, a short description of both the visual appearance of the character, but also a sense of their personality. If you want two characters together, maybe include what kind of relationship they have (lovers? Antagonistic? Both?)
- If you want a scene, include a brief summary or an excerpt
- If you want symbols, give a description of the symbols
- It’s also important for an artist to know the general tone, themes and genre of the work they are designing for
- IMPORTANT: size dimensions (be specific), dpi, colour profile requirements e.g. RGB/CYMK, and file type
You don’t have to include all of this information, but it can be helpful.
The next step is usually a sketch stage. Don’t expect it to be fancy, or finished – at this stage, this is more about honing the concept. The artist might provide you with a single sketch, or multiple. Sometimes I provide three or four – a client might come back to me and say they like sketch A, but could I change this element, or add in this element from sketch B? Sometimes the sketches aren’t what the client had in mind (usually because the brief was only three lines!) and this can prompt them to better explain what they do want, in which case I might go away and do a new sketch. Please be honest at this stage – I don’t want to go away and work for hours on finalising a sketch, only for a client to later admit they weren’t quite happy, and all that work has gone to waste. I’d much rather get it right the first time.
After everyone is happy with the sketch and elements in it, the artist goes away and works on the final design.
(Pictured below: Jenni’s BSFA award-nominated cover for Nova Scotia vol 2)
How does anyone decide what should be on the cover? Sometimes it’s a character, sometimes a scene from the story, sometimes just some pretty symbols which turn out to be subtly threaded through the story. Who makes that decision and how?
From the answer to the previous question, I hope you can see that a lot of the time it’s quite a collaborative process!
Most of the time the commissioner has a clear idea of what they want already, but if you aren’t sure, you can always ask the artist what they think. Some artists will lean more heavily one way or another – if you don’t have strong feelings, letting an artist work to their strengths can give you an amazing cover.
Having said that, most clients have a clear idea in their minds after doing some research into the existing book covers within their genre.
What advice would you give to some-one looking to commission a cover for their self published work, especially for the first time?
See the answer to question five! Really take your time to work out what you want, what artist styles you like, and enjoy the process – this should hopefully be something creatively rewarding for everyone involved!
How much does the process and workflow between publisher and artist differ between cover design and internal art extras like maps and cool sketches between chapters? (i wish more books had stuff like that!)
Follow on from this: would you need separate artists for cover vs internal extras?
The workflow is generally the same, no matter what kind of art you are commissioning. However, when considering internal artwork, you need to start thinking about costs. For example, black and white internal illustrations are a lot cheaper to print than full colour.
The cover artist you chose might not work in black and white – in those cases, you might opt for a different artist to do internal illustrations. Other cover artists might not do maps, which again might mean you look for someone else. This is actually pretty common in the industry, but some artists will do all of the above.
What is more important: The aesthetic of the cover design, the close links to the actual story, the tropes/expectations of the genre?
Ideally, a good cover artist should help you achieve all three!
These days, there is a trend towards aesthetically beautiful books – it’s a delight to hold a gorgeous book in your hands, and the rise of specialised book box subscriptions has really fed into this market. I know a lot of book collectors who buy books based on the covers alone, even if they never read them.
Still, you want to connect with your target audience, and genre conventions with covers help you achieve this. A romantasy themed cover, no matter how beautiful, will not be of great help to you if you’re selling dark and gritty cyberpunk SF. Don’t get me wrong, dystopian cyberpunk covers can also be beautiful, but they are different – instead of swirling beautiful lines, your cyberpunk might have high contrast deep blues and blacks, with gorgeous neon colours, and clean lines.
All this in mind, you want your cover to work in this context, but still be unique to your work. That’s where your actual story fits in – sometimes picking a key moment, motif, symbol or character and keeping it simple can really help.
Picking the right artist can help you with this – if you know a particular artist has created some AMAZING cyberpunk covers, they might be a good place to start. On the other hand, if they mainly work in pastel colours, fluffy romantic designs, and fantasy, you might want to rethink which project you approach them with.
I’m a very precise and detailed worldbuilder. How specific would it be reasonable for me to be about the representation of my world when I’m commissioning cover art? I suppose the most egregious example of covers not representing content might be the early editions of Le Guin’s Earthsea books, which made all the characters white, but I’m assuming there’s an upper limit for a time-poor illustrator!
If you have specific details that are non-negotiable or important to you, make it clear in your cover brief!
Sometimes an artist might come back to you and say your art idea might be overly detailed and need simplified because otherwise the artwork might end up too busy (as a writer, some of us need to trim words with editing the same way), however this is up to the artist. Most of us would rather have as much info as possible, then we can always edit it back if there’s too much.
Something I really appreciate is if clients make it clear in their brief what is important to them, e.g. A non-negotiable thing for me is that my character has this skin colour and hair style, and is holding this item, and an optional idea I had was this pose.
The key thing is to put whatever you care about in your brief. Throwing a lot of additional information at us much further down the line when we’ve already spent time thinking and sketching is often harder for us to include.
Are there fonts you particularly lean towards to accompany cover art? Are there any to steer clear of?
Font choice is really important – it needs to be clearly readable, even from a distance, so as cute as those overly stylised and swirly fonts are, they might not be the best choice for your cover.
Ensure your fonts are big enough to easily read, even if you block out some of the cover art to do it – the title and your name are usually more important. Include the wording of what you want on the cover when you send a design brief to your artist, to ensure they allow for enough space.
I hope that this has answered all of your burning questions for artists! Now go out there and commission artists to your heart’s content 🙂
Read previous columns
Ask an agent, with Laura Bennett: