PLEASE ARCHIVE

I am generally reluctant to order covers from someone whose work I haven't seen. Do you have any examples of your work you can point us to? If not, I would suggest that you create some premades and put them up on a blog or a site so we can see what your style is like.

Good luck, and welcome to KB!

Unfortunately, I don't. I understand what you're saying. It may be worth the investment of some pre-made covers. I'll make up a few and post a link. Should I use existing synopsises as a basis or create some more random covers with non-existent titles and authors?

Sending you a PM with some links for artists who do premades. I didn't want to hijack your sales thread with links to other artists.

Yeah, even for free covers, I'd be curious about the quality and see premades/portfolios first.

I do premades occasionally in my down time, and would suggest starting by looking at the various genres of books on Amazon, to get a feel of what authors are looking for and what sells.  For premades you're really designing towards a genre than a specific idea.

Find a stock photo that catches your eye, and then transform it from a photograph to a cover.

Just to add - since you're doing covers just as a starting portfolio, you can use free stock photography from sites like http://www.sxc.hu/ to help make your samples.
I wouldn't recommend selling them later, for various reasons including artist limitations (which you'll want to read) and image quality requirements, but it'll help you show off your talent and get your start. For something like this, as they wouldn't be for resale later, you make them a little more specific and create matching fake titles and author names.

Thanks a lot, that's really helpful all of you - especially the free stock photo website, very useful for the example covers I'm working on. Much appreciated.