If you’ve poured your heart and soul into producing the best book you possibly can, you’ll also want to make sure that book is packaged beautifully. The perfect cover can be difficult to come by alone, but luckily, help is available, in the form of professional book cover designers.

To help you discover the right artist to bring your vision to life, we’ve put together a list of 12 of the best book cover artists for hire in the US, all experts at crafting beautiful covers that sell.

1. Asya Blue

With over 30 years of experience in the industry, Asya Blue has overseen a huge number of projects, from large scale art direction all the way down to the tiniest logo redesign. Her love of reading has led her to book cover and book interior design, where she employs a huge variety of styles to bring authors the cover of their dreams.

Specialty genres: Anthologies, Literary Fiction, Short Stories, Women’s Fiction, Biographies & Memoirs, Career Guides, Entertainment, Music

Fun fact: Asya’s husband is also an artist — as is her daughter! It must run in the family.

2. Stewart Williams

Book cover artist Stewart Williams has rock and roll credentials; moving to Seattle in the 90s, he was at the heart of the grunge scene, and art directed Seattle’s premier music magazine, The Rocket. While magazine and newspaper publishing was a big part of Stewart’s development as an artist, his dream was always to work on book cover design. His style ranges from original Photoshop collage to hand-drawn, scanned, and colorized illustrations, and a lot in between.

Specialty genres: Biographies & Memoirs, Cooking, Food, Wine & Spirits, History, Political Science & Current Affairs, Contemporary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Horror, Mystery & Crime

Fun fact: Stewart’s approach to book design is cinematic: “Book covers are like little movie posters to me, inspiring fascination, curiosity, and anticipation — ramping up to the stories they tell.”

3. Jerry Todd

With over a thousand book covers under his belt, including multiple NYT Bestsellers and blockbusting mega-hits, Jerry Todd is a bonafide veteran of the field, and describes his work as the “BIG BOOK LOOK” — bold, eye-catching, and evocative. Working largely with stock imagery and custom typography to create unique and budget-friendly compositions, Jerry is particularly passionate about helping new authors make a splash in the marketplace, although he’s no stranger to working with clients who already have a high profile!

Specialty genres: Action & Adventure, Historical Fiction, Mystery & Crime, Thriller & Suspense, History, True Crime

Fun fact: Jerry’s clients have included superstar author James Patterson, Janet Evanovich, and even Bill Clinton.

4. YoungJu Kim

Digital book cover artist and illustrator YoungJu Kim’s works create entire whimsical worlds. Dreamlike and playful, her use of mixed media, for example watercolor over wood, creates beautifully organic and unique images where the woodgrain is incorporated into the composition and leads the piece’s shape.

Specialty genres: Anthologies, Cultural & Ethnic, Middle Grade, Picture Books, Biographies & Memoirs, Calendars, Education & Reference, Parenting & Families

Fun fact: YoungJu also works for the Gelsinger Licensing group, creating images which are featured on stationary and seasonal gifts sold in massive retailers like Walmart and Target.

5. Colleen Sheehan

Having helped over 270+ publishers bring more than 690 books to press, book artist Colleen Sheehan knows a thing or two about cover design. While she specializes in crime, memoir, and business books, she also is interested in bringing any intriguing book to life, with a catalog ranging from Christian fiction to nonfiction books sharing comedy techniques or advice for freshmen.

Specialty genres: Biographies & Memoirs, Business & Management, Education & Reference, Humanities & Social Sciences, LGBTQ Non-Fiction, Self-Help & Self-Improvement, Mystery & Crime, Thriller & Suspense

Fun fact: Colleen’s fascination with design started when she was a kid, and found herself fixated upon any flaws she found in the typesetting of her favorite books!

6. Kelly Ritchie

Mysterious, bewitching, and with the uncanny sense that something dark is lurking in the shadows, Kelly Ritchie’s fantasy book covers create an unique world. Her style lends itself to dark fantasy, fairy tales, and mythology, and has graced the covers of award-winning and bestselling books. Kelly also specializes in symbolic object covers; if a story has a strong visual motif, she can pick it out and create a beautiful cover composition with even the most unassuming object.

Specialty genres: Anthologies, Coming of Age, Epic Fantasy, Gaming & LitRPG, LGBTQ Fiction, Steampunk, Young Adult Fantasy

Fun fact: Clients of Kelly’s include top names in the genre, such as Laura Thalassa, Leia Stone, and Miranda Honfleur.

7. Lynn Andreozzi

Starting out her career inhouse as a designer for Random House, Lynn made her way up to the role of art director within the same publisher, leading bestselling projects there before making the leap to freelance work. Since then, Lynn has focused largely on women’s fiction and romance, but also worked on projects for children’s books, YA, nonfiction, mystery, and more.

Specialty genres: Contemporary Fiction, Contemporary Romance, Historical Fiction, Historical Romance, New Adult, Women’s Fiction, Biographies & Memoirs, Business & Management

Fun fact: Lynn has an extensive portfolio of romance novels, and shared one golden design rule with Publishers Weekly about the process when making romance covers: “We don’t like chest hair. I don’t know why. It’s just a thing.”

8. David Provolo

In David Provolo’s own words, “I always strive to shepherd the final product to a state of sophistication, dynamism and succinctness.” From his portfolio, it certainly looks like he pulls it off. His strikingly simple and graphic covers distill the subject of the books he works on down to their purest form, and often make use of contrasting warm and cool tones to bring out figurative images within abstract patterns.

Specialty genres: Action & Adventure, Cultural & Ethnic, Dystopian, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Poetry, History, Inspirational

Fun fact: David is a massively prolific cover designer, with over 250 reviews and counting on the Reedsy marketplace — making his 5-star average even more impressive!

9. Steve Kuhn

Having designed covers for authors such as Tony Evans, John MacArthur, and Josh McDowell, Steve Kuhn has carved out a real niche for himself as a Christian fiction and non-fiction cover designer, but his talents don’t end there! He’s also produced high-profile memoir covers, as well as books as wide ranging as college textbooks, graphic novels, cookbooks and kid’s books.

Specialty genres: Career Guides, Christian Non-Fiction, Health & Wellbeing, Self-Help & Self-Improvement, Sports & Outdoors, Christian Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, Humor & Comedy

Fun fact: Steve has written four books and self-published three, meaning he knows exactly how deeply authors care about their projects and what it takes to translate the written word into the perfect cover.

10. Robin Locke Monda

With a background in fine art and writing, Robin Locke Monda uses her knowledge of book cover design to elevate stock imagery to new heights, creating evocative and eye-catching covers for a broad range of genres. Particularly focused on sharing works by underrepresented voices, or shedding light on social justice issues, Robin’s extensive portfolio includes work for major publishing houses as well as indie authors. High-profile clients include Fay Weldon, Joyce Carol Oates, and Ishmael Reed.

Specialty genres: Cultural & Ethnic, LGBTQ Fiction, Literary Fiction, Romance, Women’s Fiction, Biographies & Memoirs, Health & Wellbeing, Religion & Spirituality

Fun fact: Robin is a crafter, who loves to sew, as well as a keen cook — and loves working on craft books about these topics.

11. Karina Granda

As well as working as a freelance book cover artist, Karina Grande is an art director for Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. Producing covers for books across age ranges, she’s produced stock image-based work and custom illustrations for major bestsellers, including works by Holly Black, Neil Patrick Harris, and Kwame Alexander. She has a particular personal affinity for humorous books, non-fiction, and coming of age stories.

Specialty genres: Biographies & Memoirs, Children’s Non-Fiction, Middle Grade, Middle Grade Fantasy, Picture Books, Thriller & Suspense, Women’s Fiction, Young Adult

Fun fact: In Karina’s own words; “I love cheese and NYC and leopard prints and shiny things and trash TV and donuts and the beach and museums and hikes (but not bikes). I also really like making books.” A woman of many talents!

12. Sunny Duran

Children’s book designer and illustrator Sunny Duran has nine years of experience producing beautiful and whimsical books. She got her start working for a parenting magazine, before moving into freelance illustration. As a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, she specializes in creating visual worlds and characters that kids love, from Graham Crackery, the food detective, to little Lani Rae and her marvelous hair.

Specialty genres: Middle Grade, Middle Grade Fantasy, Picture Books, Children’s Non-Fiction

Fun fact: The serene and playful nature of Sunny’s work belies a surprising backstory — she’s a US military vet, and former paratrooper!

We hope this list has introduced you to a few designers to check out. No matter what type of book you’re creating, somebody here will be able to help you create a cover you’re happy for people to judge your book by!