Logos, E-book Covers, And More With 99Designs

If you have a book or an e-book, there comes a time when you need to create your electronic book cover. If your writing creativity matches your artistic creativity, then you may have the skills to create a professional image. That is, if you have the technical skills to translate your art into an electronic image.

The same thing holds true for logos. You may have a design in your head that you just don't know how to get onto your computer, book, letterhead, or business cards. If this describes you, then your options are to hire someone to create the designs for you, do the best you can yourself, or find a design service online that allows you to create a semi customized option. (Actually, you have many more options, but these are your basic ones).

A few days ago, I was talking to a friend of mine who runs a highly successful online training business. He told me that he tried a lot of services whenever he needed similar work but now he goes almost exclusively to a website called 99Designs.com. This site has a very unique business model and my friend has been happy with the results he has gotten from it.

Here's how it works: the site community is made up of three participants:

1. Clients who need projects created.
2. Designers with the skills to complete the projects (almost 45,000 strong).
3. The website to facilitate interaction between clients and designers.

Let's say you want a new cover for an e-book you just created. You simply register at the site and launch your project. You describe what it is in detail that you're looking for, create a "contest", set an amount to be paid for the winning design, and set the length of the contest period. Then, for the length of the contest period, designers will create and submit their designs to compete in order to win the cash prize you specified.

So if you've written a book called Learn How To Play The Harmonica In One Day, you would provide the dimensions, color schemes, text, and any graphic you want on the cover. You might choose to run a contest for seven days (the norm), and set $200 as a prize. The key thing in making this work is to provide constant feedback as the designs come in. At the end of the contest period, you have the option to award the $200 for the design you like best or, if you don't see a design you really like, you are free to not award the prize to anyone.

If you see yourself ever using this type of service, then you should visit 99Designs.com and check out the quality of submissions currently on the site. I know that there are many good web sites and companies out there that provide similar services, and I welcome your comments about them. Oh, and if you have the creative and technical skills to turn someone else's concept into a design, then you may find a new revenue stream for yourself on the site.

Tony Eldridge