Jeff Brown Graphics

Jeff Brown is a solo science-fiction and fantasy illustrator and cover designer working in the industry since 2013, out of Saskatchewan, Canada. He has been a Dragon Award finalist for Best Illustrative Book Cover four years running — 2023, 2024, 2025, and again in 2026 for The Sapphire Heart, a Three Scribes title, with winners announced at Dragon Con in September 2026. His client wall runs past twenty marks: Scholastic, TOR, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Harper Voyager, Bloomsbury, Hachette, Hodder, Head of Zeus, Bantam, Baen, Audible, and Podium, alongside the special-edition presses and subscription boxes — The Broken Binding, FairyLoot, Illumicrate — and games publishers Fantasy Flight Games and AEG.

What You Get#

• One all-in package, last published at $2,000: Ebook cover, paperback print cover, hardcover print cover, a 3× wide illustration continuing past both sides of the ebook cover, banner image, 3D mockups with and without background, audiobook cover, the artwork file, and full rights to the art and design. His live Reedsy profile lists the same bundle item for item, plus the PSD.
• Technique: Digital painting, 3D modeling and rendering, photo manipulation, and graphic design — combined per project rather than sold as separate tiers.
• Process: A Zoom kickoff where he sketches concepts live on the call, then roughly two weeks of work to a 50%-complete draft, then final files. He is explicit that he will push back on ideas he thinks hurt the cover's marketability.
• Indie and traditional in the same pipeline: The 2026 Dragon nomination is for a small-press book, not a Big Five one — the award-level work is reachable by indie authors.

Who It's For#

• Authors competing with Big Five covers: At $2,000-plus this is priced for a book being run as a commercial product, not a side project.
• Epic fantasy, sci-fi, romantasy, grimdark, LitRPG, progression fantasy and YA fantasy authors: His portfolio and his Reedsy genre list both cluster there. He says he works in other genres, but everything on display is speculative fiction.
• Authors who want fully original artwork: Painted and rendered scenes, not the stock-composite style typical of mid-tier custom studios.

Strengths#

• Dragon Award finalist four years running: 2023 through 2026, plus an American Book Fest Best Book Awards win for Best Cover Design: Fiction in 2021.
• States a no-AI policy in plain words: "I don't use AI generated images in my work." In a February 2026 SFWA interview he goes further, warning that some authors "don't even know they're getting AI-made covers," especially on premades.
• Hardcover-ready files included: Ebook plus paperback plus hardcover delivery is unusual at any tier, and common only on premium illustrated work.
• Full rights to the art and design transfer to the author — a custom studio more often keeps the artwork and licenses it to you.
• 164 reviews at a 5.0 average on Reedsy, where he has been listed since May 2016 and is currently marked available for hire.
• Payment flexibility, as last published: A monthly payment plan at no extra cost, and a $50 refundable deposit to hold a slot. He also stated that if you dislike his first draft you pay nothing and the project is cancelled, with the piece reworked into a premade. Confirm all three directly — see below.

Limitations#

• He publishes no current price. The $2,000 above is his last published figure, from his own pricing page as archived in September 2021; that page did not survive the 2023 site rebuild, and nothing has replaced it. On that same page he wrote "my prices will go up," and he has collected three more Dragon nominations since. Treat $2,000 as a dated floor and budget above it. An older kboards ad showing a $1,600 / $1,800 / $2,000 ladder is the 2015-era shape and was superseded by the single package.
• Long booking queue: He last stated he books four to five months ahead, with a rush fee negotiable. The 14-day turnaround above is production time after sketch approval, not time to delivery from your first email.
• Booking through Reedsy costs about 10% more than emailing him directly, since Reedsy adds a client-side fee on top of the designer's quote.
• Almost nothing is contractual. The site carries no terms, no refund policy, no revision count, no published turnaround and no quote form — just an email address. The 2021 WordPress site published a process page, testimonials and rates; the current Squarespace build publishes none of them.
• Premium pricing: $2,000-plus excludes most debut and budget indie authors; the cost assumes a release strategy that can recoup it.