Came across a blog post on 30-Day Books recently that excitedly shared the news of a contest awarding a free book-cover design to a few lucky self-published authors. Of course, we’re talking about crowdsourcing here…
Just to get us all on the same page, crowdsourcing is the practice of throwing out a job to a crowd of people who all work on “spec” (i.e., unpaid) for the chance to earn a (typically low) fee if their work is chosen from all those submitted. It’s ideal mainly for financially bootstrapped entities, but larger, more solvent firms may also fall prey to its illusory charms…
At first blush, the chance to tap the “universal creative conscious” is seductive. You sit back, watch the parade of creative outpouring, and only pay for the one you choose.
The reality is often quite different. Often many hundreds of marginally talented folks with more time than skill on their hands will throw their hat in the ring. Heck, that should be your first red flag: if all these people are working for free, are they really any good?
In any case, the client has to sift through a huge pile of dreck, with the bright spots few and far between. It can devolve into an epic time-suck.
One of my readers forwarded me the story of a law firm that crowdsourced the creation of their logo, and for which, it went beyond time-suck to Time Black Hole…
750+ entries to review in endless staff meetings, soliciting ongoing feedback from family members (a surefire way to avoid getting any truly informed/educated opinions). No need to read every word of this travesty to grasp the Pandora’s Box they opened.
Here are parts one, two and three.
Bottom line, the $600 they ponied up for the winner was the spare-change portion of their total investment in this fool’s errand. If they didn’t collectively spend 100-150 hours on this (in a business that no doubt bills, minimum, at $300-350 an hour), I’ll eat my hat. So, that’s $30,000 – conservatively.
As for the logo they ended up with (revealed in part three), I’m exceptionally underwhelmed. Given how they described their firm, what they did, and what they wanted to convey, I’m not at all sure this gets the job done.
For about $1500-2000 (or less), they could have hired a professional designer to create the right logo, spending FAR less time talking through their mission with that one creative person, and making sure that who they were and what they did was accurately, effectively and powerfully conveyed in the final product.
As it was, it became an exhausting, grinding process, where “finishing the GD thing” and “just picking something” became the goal. If you believe that’s a recipe for a quality outcome, I want some of what you’re smoking.
Back to the contest post that started this missive…
As you’ll see in the chirpy reply (to my comment on the blog post above) from the rep of the company offering the freebies, the first fiction they perpetrate is that if you go with one designer, you get ONLY their distinctive style, and nothing else. By contrast, y’see, go the crowdsourcing route and you get aaaaaaalll these styles weighing in.
Well, I’d be an idiot to assert that getting input from 100’s of designers wouldn’t yield a wide range of styles, but his first assertion is patently false: what distinguishes a professional designer is their ability to adapt their skills to any project and to craft work that spans the gamut of styles.
Check out the portfolios of this book-cover designer, and this one, and this one. Tell me all their books have the same specific trademark style. They just don’t.
He goes on to say that some professional designers DO play the crowdsourcing game. Hey, I’m sure that’s the case, but his next statement was a real head-scratcher:
The biggest hassle in a designer’s life is finding new clients and working with them. So there’s a huge draw to competing in contests where they can focus on what they do best: designing. No collection calls, no meetings and no marketing efforts or expenses.
So, designers, with no silver crossing their palms, take the time to design a cover and throw it in the pot along with potentially hundreds of others, all for the borderline lottery-odds chance that their design will be chosen, and for which they’ll earn half or a third of their normal fee? This is a better alternative than marketing one’s services to find clients who will pay your normal rates? Sounds like a lot of hobbyists with a lot of time on their hands…
And if you ARE a good designer, and you realize the long-shot nature of this proposition, are you really going to go all out? You really think that author is going to get their best efforts? Versus what you’d get if they hired ONE person, and paid them well?
But, even if you DO end up with a decent design, their process – dealing with hundreds of designs/designers – as opposed to getting into a substantive, focused discussion with one talented person right from the get-go, is an inefficient one. At its heart is the hope that the Law of Averages will kick in, and amidst all the dreck will be a gem.
Anyone considering this route needs to ask themselves, “What is my time worth?” Even if it’s something low like $30 or $40 an hour, if the whole process takes 50 hours (and it absolutely could), is that a good trade? When you can get a GREAT book cover from a professional, highly credentialed book-cover designer for $1000-$2000, and spend a LOT less time on the process?
Finally, book-cover design is a specific skill honed over time; it’s not something that any designer, even a talented one in another arena of design, will naturally excel out of the gate. And a book cover is too important to risk on the mercy of the odds. Far better to go with a proven entity, and pay their toll.
As a veteran freelancer and author who’s been dealing with professional designers for 20 years (both in my commercial writing practice and my book publishing ventures), and who’s been coaching self-publishing authors since 2002, I’ve seen firsthand, hundreds of times, the value of hiring professional resources.
And I’ve also seen all the shortcut-peddlers in every arena of book publishing, selling the illusion that they’ve built a better mousetrap when they’ve done no such thing… Not saying crowdsourcing can never yield a good result – I’m sure it has. But a better mousetrap? Sorry, no sale.
(Look for a similar themed post on The Well-Fed Writer Blog soon)
Have you ever gone the crowdsourcing route? If so, what was your experience?
Have you made the mistake of going with less expensive creative resources, only to have to invest more money to fix things?
Any other thoughts on crowdsourcing?
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