I’m sure you’ve probably used Fiverr.com for different things in your affiliate business. Odds are you had mixed results. Some gigs went well and others didn’t.
Fiverr is one of my favorite places to find hidden talent in different areas. Primarily I use it to get affordable graphic design.
Case in point, last week I bought an eCover gig for my forthcoming Kindle book: “Affiliate Marketing for Beginners in 2012”
The result?
I got back a pretty slick looking image that only cost me a five spot. (See the above image)
Not bad if you ask me!
I’d say the quality is on par with eBook cover designs you’d get with Odesk or eLance…But at a fraction of the cost!
Now, there is a trick to Fiverr microsourcing for graphics work. You can’t buy a gig and assume the service provider knows what you want. Instead, I recommend you use my three-step process for getting great eCover graphics…
[title color=”green-vibrant” align=”scmgccenter” font=”verdana” style=”normal” size=”scmgc-2em”]I. Hire the Right Person[/title]
You’ll find there is a wide range of graphics talent on Fiverr. My advice is to enter your keyword into the search box (ie: “eCover” or “Kindle cover”) and then sort the results based on the Ratings. From there, look for gig providers who have the “top-rated seller” ranking.
Here’s how all this looks:
From there, you want to click on each profile to check out their offer. My advice is to only work with people who have these three things:
- An estimated time of delivery of 3 days or less
- A 95% gig rating or better
- Less than five orders in their queue
These three steps will ensure you’re getting a great eCover in the shortest amount of time.
By the way, this is the gig provider that I used for my Kindle book. She didn’t have as many gigs in her queue when I hired her. I guess the word is out about her services. 🙂
[title color=”green-vibrant” align=”scmgccenter” font=”verdana” style=”normal” size=”scmgc-2em”]II. Provide Specific Instructions[/title]
Leave nothing to chance with Fiverr. A generalized, wishy-washy description will result in a wishy-washy eCover.
My advice is to do these things:
- Provide an image the gig provider can work with
- Include the title, sub-title, and author information
- Give a basic description of the target audience
- Show examples of eCovers that you like
Do these things and odds are you’ll get a great eCover.
Example: For my Amazon Kindle eCover, I provided a vector graphic from iStock Photo. (The same one I used for my Facebook Timeline graphic.) Then I showed her an existing eCover image that I liked. What I got back was exactly what I wanted.
[title color=”green-vibrant” align=”scmgccenter” font=”verdana” style=”normal” size=”scmgc-2em”]III. Ask for Edits[/title]
Sometimes you won’t receive a great finished product. It’s up to YOU to take action when this happens. If you don’t like the eCover, then you should ask for an edit.
Many people don’t want to hassle a gig provider on Fiverr since it’s only $5. The way I look at it is:
[quote type=”medium” align=”left”] Bad quality is still bad quality- Even if you’re only paying five bucks! [/quote]
Follow up with your Fiverr gig providers. Remind them of what you asked for in the initial communication. And don’t leave feedback until you’re 100% happy with the end result.
[title color=”green-vibrant” align=”scmgccenter” font=”verdana” style=”normal” size=”scmgc-2em”]Final Thoughts…[/title]
Like I said at the start of this article; I use Fiverr for a ton of different things. It’s quickly becoming my “go to” place to get cheap, quality work completed. But, there is a bit of art to finding the right person. My advice is to know what you want up front and be able to communicate it in a clear, concise manner.
Finally…
You might be wondering about my new Kindle book: “Affiliate Marketing for Beginners in 2012”
I hope to have it ready by late next week.
The best part?
I’m going to do a special launch where I give away free copies for one entire day!
So keep an eye out for the announcement on my new Facebook page. (Be sure to “like it” while you’re over there.)
Take Action. Get Results.
Awesome tips! I tried fiverr one time for kindle ebook covers and I wasn’t happy. I’ll have to try again because I want to update a few of my older books to make the cover look a little more “pretty”.
Great post steve!
Shuck,
Yeah, you can get some good stuff there from the better graphic artists. Specifically if you give them a starting point. The more you can give them as an idea of how you want it to look..the better.
Great advice Steve for finding the right person on Fiverr. I hired someone on Fiverr to create an eBook cover for me last year and the quality was exceptional. I went back to find the same person again to create a new eBook cover for me but they are no longer on Fiverr. Can’t beat 5 bucks for a decent eBook cover. 😉
Really 5$ is incredible. Worth the risk that you get back something subpar. The same thing on odesk is easily ten times that (at least!)
Hey Steve
the other day you shared with me this girl that did the cover for you, at the moment she had 15 people on queue, but amazingly she delivered the cover in around 4 days! And it was pretty cool, so thanks for the advice, this is a very good investment for all that want to take their business to another level. Me, I just need to make a kindle version of my ebook, convert it and uploaded.
I just wonder if its better to ask somebody on fiver to convert it for kindle format or do it yourself .. thoughts?
Dennis,
I honestly havent looked into having someone else do the conversion for me. That is just something that I am a little to anal to just “let go”. I would constantly be worried and would have to double check and fix it the way i wanted anyhow…so it is just easier to do it myself.
Without looking though…I am sure it CAN be done. 😉
Steve,
Where did you learn to do the conversion? I’ve got an ebook thats ready to go and available on my website, but want to make it available for the Kindle.
Any tips?
Sweet! I have never heard of this site, good thing you have posted about this and how much money buyers like us can save. Thanks!
James,
If you have never heard of it, fiverr is certainly worth looking at.
There are surely some sleazy jobs, and some not worth the $$, and some people who deliver sloppy work…but you find enough gems to make it worthwhile.
Great post Steve! I definitely think that a lot of people underestimate Fiverr and don’t use it simply because they think everyone there is just out to make a quick buck and not provide value. However, I’ve found quite a few great gigs their! You just need to know how to filter the gigs well – I pretty much use exactly the tips you gave here!
Your eBook cover looks GREAT!
Thomas
Thomas,
Yup for sure there are some bad gigs. But they are more than balnaced by people who use their skills to make their money in quality VOLUME. If you filter the gigs right it really decreases those odds of the crappy work.
I’ve tried to hire someone to design my cover on Fiverr and both times they sent me back a stock picture with the title of my book and the author.
I don’t need to pay anybody to do that. I can do it myself.
However, I like your ecover. I like this kind of abstract designs. 3
Cristina
Oops, I just noticed that the girl who design your cover is the same girl who designed the cover for my first book.
Cristina,
Was she one of the ones you had an issue with? Or did she do a good job for you too? Just curious.
Steve
Hey Steve, great post. I’ve been posting my Fiverr Built Case Study and have been really impressed with the results of using Fiverr for all of my outsourcing.
You did a great job of breaking down the steps to finding the a good gig. I have yet to use it for graphic design though which will probably be the next step.
Thanks again for the post.
Thanks Johnny,
IN general I have been fairly impressed with my own experiences on fiverr too. Surely some jobs and workers have been duds. It happens. But all told, you can get fairly decent value for a measly $5.
Steve
Hey Steve,
I have had mixed results with Fiverr. But, after reading your post, I am realizing certain things such as the fact that I never asked for an edit (I thought it wasn’t great to ask for an edit, especially when they only charge 5 bucks). Another thing I haven’t done is provide my own image – I guess I need to do that the next time I hire a Fiverr designer. There are a lot of talented designers in Fiverr – we just need to find them and give them the right description so that they can design and give us what we want.
Thank you for the tutorial, Steve!
Jeevan Jacob John
Jeevan,
With something as particular as a design the more information you can give upfront the better it will be.
I think in general, if you are demanding on the front end with your requirements, most people will TRY to do a decent job (to get a good rating).
Hopefully this gives people an idea of what THEY have to do before just asing for a cover
I’m consistently surprised at the quality of work by people on fiverr.com. Amazing what five Dollars will get you. I’m assuming most of the people on fiverr are willing to work for cheap in an attempt to make contacts for more lucrative long-term work in the future – that’s what I would do if I were freelancing on fiverr. $5 is criminally low for the talent some of those people have.
I think it is contacts AND the volume idea. If you are really skilled at something you can knock it out pretty fast. It might take some of these guys (and gals) 15 minutes to do what would take me an hour. This makes it worthwhile for both parties (20$ and hour for them, what would take an hour and not be as good for me)
Once again spot on. Thank you for such solid advice!
Thanks Deborah! 🙂
Hi Steve,
The ecover looks great. And I agree Fiverr is awesome.
I have been using it a lot for my clients lately, and especially when it comes to creating intro videos. There are so many brilliant people on Fiverr, but it takes a lot of time to find them and that’s why I keep notes on who I should be contacting for high quality work 🙂
I am looking forward to the launch of your book.
Thanks Jens,
Yes, it is definetly worth taking down the names of the people who do great work! (as well as speinding the time to give them a nice review)
Hey Steve,
Yep, Fiverr is a great place. It may take a little trial and error at first, but for only $5 it’s worth it. Now I have get all of my eBook covers done through there!
Hey Steve,
I remember we talked about this fiverr gig on Facebook and I’m glad you decided to write an article about it.
I recently created a new website that needed a logo, I hired about five different people and all were supposed to be very good (had credentials inside fiverr) but only a couple of them actually delivered.
I’d like to write a post about it and showcase the logos so people can see what a $5 logo looks like but I just haven’t had the time for it.
Anyway, thisi fiverr hiring is obviously not an exact science so whenever you find someone you like, hold on to it.
Great article as always Steve, take care and look forward to your next project my man.
Sergio
Hey Steve. yeah fiver is awesome!! you can get some super quality work on there just make sure that you use people that have many positive reviews and use some of the great tips you have mentioned. We have just made a new fully pro video for our site and we used fiver for the voice over he did an awesome job.
I got a great Gravatar using an artist on Fiverr. It’s not the one I’m using here; it’s much better.
You have to laugh Steve as that Fiverr Gig now has 64 orders currently in the queue. I have used her before and been happy. Just give her the image and some direction and she comes up with something quite professional.
She does a great job…but the wait was pretty long. I finally decided to go with a more professional service. That way I could get multiple revisions in a short amount of time.
Excellent advice. It’s funny because had I used your advice last week, I probably would have an ebook on kindle by now. I also wouldn’t have ended up using that same exact designer, and getting screwed over royally by her, believe it or not. I loved her trailer video and her portfolio. I ordered the cover, tipped her right off the bat, and purchased next day delivery. I didn’t know what I was doing. It would have been nice if she could have at least emailed me and said I’m too busy, and can’t make your product. She did have around 40 or 50 projects in her queue. I didn’t know that was an insurmountable amount for her. I had nothing to base it on. She was one of the highest rated, most impressive, and professional designers on there, and had over 7k projects completed with a 99% rating and 7k ratings. All the others in her caliber had the same work load. She even said in her write up, don’t let the work load scare you, or something to that effect, and that it will be 3 days or less. lol. well, long story short, I received a message stating my order was delivered! I was excited. She sent her completion email and said my ebook cover was attached. To my surprise, it was not attached. I wrote her about it twice over the next two days and never heard back. She essentially sent me an incomplete project to bide herself more time. Once she sent this delivery email, Fiverr grants her 3 days where in which the buyer can rate and keep, or reject the project. If you don’t rate it, or don’t reject it, and instead, just wait to hear back from her, and the 3 day period ends, then you are SOL. The order is finished and she gets the money, and you get a confirmation email and no product.
Well, that’s what was about to happen to me, but I got tech support involved, and they started contacting her about it. She never responded to them on the matter either. Fortunately they were able to stop my order and refund my money. I am a new, strapped, budding entrepreneur, very much in need of something to happen for me to help me become financially stable, and I am starting a coaching business, which initially revolves around the methodology presented in my first ebook. I’m trying to get it up online with a great presentation, and I’m finding this to be a serious pain in the, well, anyway. I basically lost a week of time over a cheap lousy eBook cover deal that went pathetically bad. Where else can I get cheap covers? Do you think this will happen to me again?
Okay, enough questions. I just wanted to contribute my experience to the group, so that others realize that though the advice in this article is fantastic, I’m not so certain that this particular designer is as amazing as she was a couple years ago. Thank you for your amazing advice in this blog though Steve! I think I might jump back in to Fiverr with your approach in mind now.
Good points Eric … you’re absolutely right. Fiverr isn’t the best when it comes to cover design. I’ve now decided to focus on working with one designer. If you’d like his info, just email me: stevescottsite[at]gmail[dot]com.