One of the goals mom and I have had for our series is to redo the covers to make them easier to view online and more attractive and modern in their looks. Design for a cover can be very expensive so we searched for, and found an affordable way to do this through a web company: Fiverr, which allows creative individuals from around the world to bid on projects in their field. When Architect of Fate, book five, was released last fall, we tested the international system by asking for bids on that cover with a hint that if we were happy with the results of this new book cover, we wanted the rest of the covers done with a similar look.

We received quite a few bids and picked Harshani Fernando, a designer in Sri Lanka whose work we thought was eye catching. We loved the drama she put into Architect of Fate’s look enough to offer the other covers to her as we could afford them.

I won’t say the process didn’t have its ups and downs: dealing with someone so far away who speaks a different language is bound to have some challenges. We also had some scheduling problems as well as difficulty trying to figure out Fiverr’s web site, which requires you to correspond with your chosen vendor only through their own system. We also were doing all this during the busiest season we have: the holiday craft fair season.

But we kept with it, kept the faith in Harshani’s creativity, and now have five appealing covers.

What this experience affirmed to me personally is that, as authors, our instincts are our greatest tool. We have to be our own champions—researching, writing, editing, marketing, selling—we have to spare a little of our creative juices to accomplish all that in a way we can afford. In this case, we needed to find a less expensive way to tap into the world of creative designers. Six years ago, when we started writing, this international bidding channel would not have been available to us. I found out about it at several writer’s conferences.

I’m not the most sophisticated internet user and the Fiverr site confused me almost from the get-go. But we liked what we were seeing from the designers there; we liked what we saw in Harshani’s portfolio. The result is that we’re happy we reached across the world to snatch up the talents of someone in a country we’ll probably never get to visit.

And now we present the works of Harshani Fernando. We’d love to hear from readers what you think.–Genilee Swope Parente