Hiring an artist for a book usually means hiring someone to make the cover look good. You send over the synopsis, maybe a Pinterest board full of moody castles and attractive people staring into the distance. A few rounds of feedback later: boom, you’ve got a cover, job done, everyone will click on your story.
Except that they won’t, because more fiction is being written, published and discovered every day, while readers, unfortunately for you, have not yet unlocked the ability to add another six hours to their day. So let’s take this a step further.
Imagine a romance novel where the places, outfits, letters, jewellery and little objects from the story all become things you can actually see. Or a mystery where the strange photograph mentioned on page 87 actually exists. Suddenly, the artist is helping make the world people see while they’re reading it.
That feels like a pretty exciting shift. A great story still matters. But when readers have more stories competing for their attention, authors will need to give people more reasons to notice a story, remember it and spend time inside its world.
Why Hiring an Artist For Your Book
Let’s start with the obvious: standing out is hard. There are more stories and more things competing for a reader’s attention than ever. Your cover might stop someone for two seconds. Great. But what happens next? This is where bringing an artist into the story can give you more shots on goal.
Don’t get me wrong; not every book needs an illustration every three pages. Please don’t turn your 400-page thriller into a flipbook. And you definitely don’t need to reveal every character, location and plot twist before the reader has even finished chapter one.
A little mystery is still a good thing.
Think of visual storytelling the same way you think about storytelling itself: you can control the pace. Show the city before you show the person who lives there. Give readers a glimpse of that weird object everyone’s been talking about, then make them wait to find out what it does.
Make no mistake: None of this guarantees that more people will read your book. Nothing does. But every strong visual gives your story another chance to catch someone’s eye, spark their curiosity or stick in their head. That’s a pretty useful thing to have when you’re trying to get noticed.
Where Should I Even Start?
I get a real kick out of thinking about this, because once you go down this rabbit hole, the possibilities are endless. I start seeing characters, places, objects, tiny details from the story - all the stuff that’s been living in my head - and thinking, why not let the reader see some of it too?
A character might have a distinctive face that readers should be able to recognize. A city might be important enough to deserve an image of its own. A strange object might keep appearing throughout the story. A family crest. A spaceship. A sword. A house. A map of a country that doesn’t exist. A particular scene might be so visually specific that seeing it would add something that words alone can’t.
These don’t have to become elaborate production projects. You also don’t need all of them. You could simply work with an illustrator on character art. You could commission a map, one chapter illustration, poster, symbol, piece of concept art or visual reference for an important location.
You Don’t Have to Be an Artist
Some authors are artists themselves. Some aren’t. Having a visual identity doesn’t mean needing to become one.
You might sketch your characters on a piece of paper and give those sketches to an illustrator. You might commission a traditional painter. You might work with a digital artist, photographer, 3D artist or someone working in a completely different medium. You might even collaborate with several people.
You might also use AI somewhere in the process. That’s a creative and personal decision, with its own questions around style, authorship, training data and artistic values. What matters is that you as the author have a creative vision for the world, even if someone else helps bring parts of it to life.
PS: If you're an artist reading this and want to collaborate with authors on Quibble, hop on our Discord and explore the latest projects!
More Benefits From Hiring an Artist For Your Book
There is another reason why hiring an artist for your book makes sense: the collaboration can change the way you see your own story. You describe something you’ve imagined for years, and someone else interprets it. Sometimes they get it wrong. Sometimes they get it better than you expected. That second thing can be extremely valuable.
An artist can make you notice details about your own world that you hadn’t fully thought through. How does that city actually look? What would this character wear? What does the architecture say about the society? What kind of objects would people in this world carry around?
The collaboration becomes part of the creative process rather than something that happens after the writing is finished. That can make the world itself richer. And that has a serious chance to pull in new readers.
More Visibility, More Readers
Most authors spend an enormous amount of time thinking about what their story sounds like. They choose every word. Far fewer stop and think about what that story should look like. Maybe it needs character portraits. Maybe it needs one strange illustration that perfectly captures the whole thing.
There isn’t a formula. But if you’re hiring an artist for a book, don’t limit the brief to “make me a cover.” Think bigger.
A cover is designed to introduce and package a book, but a visual identity can make the fictional world more recognizable and give readers additional ways to engage with it.
Common options include character portraits, location art, maps, chapter illustrations, fictional objects, symbols, posters and concept art. The right format depends on the story and what aspects of its world are worth making visible.
Give the artist enough context to understand the character or world they are illustrating: relevant passages, character descriptions, references, mood, setting and any details that are important to the story.
Writing a strong story remains essential, but authors can also build depth around it. Characters, lore, artwork, side stories, discussions, behind-the-scenes material and reader participation can turn a single story into a larger experience.
The author usually provides the story, creative direction and context, while the artist interprets that material visually. The process can be as simple as commissioning a single illustration or develop into an ongoing collaboration around characters, locations and the wider visual identity of the story.
