Sometimes you have to know when to throw in the towel and call in the experts.

I mean, I liked the cover I put together for my all-ages, contemporary-fantasy novel A Sudden  Outbreak of Magic. It had some nice movement to it, some cool fireworks, and a riverboat, just like the one in the climactic final scene of the book.

But it was kind of dark, the image was small, and the whole thing felt kind of… flat, somehow. It didn’t show the fun in the book, nor did it show that it was a book for kids aged ten and up. The cover didn’t do its job.

So I’ve been looking, off and on, for some new cover possibilities. And then this week I ran across the wonders of “premade covers” online. Talk about falling down the rabbit hole! After scanning through hundreds of covers, I managed to find a bunch of great covers for a couple other books of mine that need some TLC. But nothing for my Contagious Magic series of books.

And then I found a premade cover by artist M. Selena Jackson.

It jumped off the screen at me.

It was perfect — I’d found my main character, Kelley, right there on her cover, looking out at me with a hint of a smile on her face. Perfect!

So I contacted Ms. Jackson, and she kindly did some tweaking to the background and added the title and my name to the cover, and BOOM. A fantastic cover.

Here it is — I don’t have enough words to express how wonderful this cover is for A Sudden Outbreak of Magic:

(Yes, that’s the city of Dubuque behind her, where most of the story takes place! So awesome.)

To celebrate the new cover, I’m running a giveaway at Amazon — if you’re one of the first 30 people to enter the giveaway (you’ll need to “Follow” my Author page at Amazon to qualify), you’ll have a 2 in 30 chance to win a free copy of the ebook for A Sudden Outbreak of Magic.

Here’s another link to the giveaway — please check it out and let me know if you have questions (I’ve never done one of these!).

Oh, and one more thing… Ms. Jackson is now working on the covers for books 2 and 3!

(Drops the mike.)