The first cover I had done was Guardian. It ran me about $350. It was $200 for the front and $150 for spine and back cover art. Book Three ran $200 and we reused the back cover art and the new one for Requiem was $150 and again we reused the back art. I got a discount because I consigned about $1300 in additional artwork for my upcoming series. That includes a company logo, four covers with six optional chevrons/emblems each for my 22 episode serial. Front cover only. And a final full front/back cover for a combined edition that I will offer in print. Each cover took about a month to get after phone calls going over ideas and seeing various concept sketches. Also she read an early version of the books before working on them for theme and ideas.
If you have the talent to do it yourself, awesome. But if you can find a quality artist, they are worth every penny in my opinion.
