My next plan was a little more ambitious. Because of Amazon's payout structure, I knew that if I wrote something three times the length and charged $2.99, it would make six times as much money per sale. I also suspected I would sell more in general and so I gave myself a real budget for self-publishing what would become my first novella, Forsworn.

Once you have a budget, you have to find an artist. You can try to do so off a recommendation, or you might have a friend you can use. I spent a couple of weeks looking through DeviantArt accounts and emailing artists whose work I enjoyed. I gave them a summary of what I wanted and asked for cost and turn-around times. I must have emailed forty different people. Only about a third ever actually returned my messages and of those, only a small handful could work with my budget of around $400.

As an aside, I want to be very clear on something: don't rip off artists. Don't try to bully them into working "for exposure" and don't stiff them on the bill at the last minute. It's just fine to have a budget and just fine to negotiate ahead of time. Every artist is going to have different amounts of leeway and different prices. If someone is adamant on a price you can't afford just thank them for their time and move on. Being a prick about it may save you a few bucks—but word gets around. Don't be that guy.

I was hugely lucky to find Rene Aigner. He's affordable, talented, he answers all my emails in a timely manner (I've heard horror stories of pro artists who just sort of disappear for six months at a time), and he works dang quick. Because we'd had a previous email chain regarding character art he was willing to come down a little bit to meet my budget. All in all, he was (and still is) a delight to work with.

The first thing you should know about commissioning an artist is that they are not the art director. You are. You have to make the decisions about who and what goes on the cover—the colors, the characters, the text (which the artist doesn't necessarily include in their services). The artist is doing exactly what you tell them to do which means that if you're unhappy with the final product it's just as likely (or more so) to be your fault as it is theirs. For each of my covers, I've given Rene a very specific set of instructions regarding the foreground and characters, and then been a bit more vague on the background.

Some people have the talent to be their own art director. Some people don't. I'm not saying I do, but I've got particular tastes and generally know what I want ahead of time. I also have a couple of graphic designer friends (Isaac and Jen) who I can consult when I'm in a quandary.

For Forsworn I wanted something that threatened violence, with the immediate dueling theme of the novella. The background is fairly vague because of budget constraints (and because the duel referenced takes place in a blizzard) but the characters and foreground present a deadly, powerful picture.

Servant of the Crown is an immediate follow-up to Forsworn, so I wanted it to have a similar aesthetic. We see Erika on the front, but instead of facing her challenge she is back-to-back with her new ally, a young Tamas. We still have the threat of violence, but off-screen rather than on, and we have a cityscape instead of the snowy mountains. The detail meant it was more expensive than the Forsworn cover, but I knew it was going to sell so I didn't mind paying it.