The Wishner's Curse book cover

I created this book cover for author Camille S. Campbell. When Camille contacted me earlier this year, she told me that she found me through the writing website Storybird. Storybird is mostly used by students (children and teens), and occasionally I'll get an email from a Storybird user along the lines of "hi my name is kara i love ur art!! can u please make a drawing for my story thank u." (I genuinely love Storybird users, they're very sweet, but...you can tell they're kids!)

Camille was different. She wrote emails like a business school graduate, and was willing to pay my professional rate.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that she was 14 years old! Clearly I was working with a prodigy, and she deserved nothing less than my best work.

My process for working with self-published authors is pretty similar for working with publishing companies. I'll do a little more explaining about my process, so the author knows what to expect and what I expect from them in return. (I often refer them to this blog, which is handy because then they can see step-by-step examples.)

Camille's book, The Wishner's Curse, is an Egyptian-based middle-grade fantasy novel. She described what she wanted to see on her cover: the two main characters looking like "a mystery-solving team," with the villain holding a sapphire amulet behind them, and a cave studded with "glimmering gems of many colors and golden dust." Here are the sketches I sent to her.

Camille asked me to combine two of the sketches, and to make some changes to the appearances of the main characters. Also, more sparkles!

From there I was cleared to go to final.

Camille described the illustration as "everything I ever dreamed it could be," which was a relief! I really didn't want to disappoint!

This was my first time designing an entire book cover, not just the illustration. Camille and I worked together on font choice and word placement, and I also painted a little landscape for the back cover.

I asked for a signed copy and Camille delivered! I'm proud to add this to my bookshelf.

You can buy a copy of The Wishner's Curse at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Thank you Camille for the opportunity to work on such a fun cover. Remember me when you're a famous author!