Book Cover Designer Recommendations?

Hi Warriors!

Ok, I'm in the process of writing and publishing my first (real-world) book. I'm excited!

As someone else pointed out in another thread on this topic, if you're an unknown (which I am) people WILL judge a book by it's cover. So I want mine to be as professional as possible.

I'm self-publishing a REAL-WORLD book and the quality of the production needs to be on the same level as those you'd find in any bookstore. Design is not my forte so I'm willing to hire a designer to design the cover of my book and I'm looking for recommendations. If anyone does this, knows anyone they'd recommend or where I can find someone, I'd greatly appreciate it!

A couple of things though:

1. I'm more than willing to pay someone and I'm not looking for a freebie or handout. But I AM newly unemployed. (I just lost my job two days ago.) So money is incredibly tight and I do need to get this done for as little as possible.

2. Because I'm unemployed, I simply cannot afford to pay someone for redos or go to a different designer if I don't like what I get. In the past, I've spent a LOT of time and money getting my Web site design exactly as I wanted. I went through several different designers and designs.

As a writer myself, I believe freelancers need to be paid for their time as well as their services, so I've paid designers even when I didn't get what I wanted (and still had to move on to another designer and pay THEM). I simply CANNOT afford that right now. I need a designer who does good work and is willing to work on the project until I get what I want without continually charging me. (I try hard not to be a PITA and I try to be easy to work with. As a freelancer myself, I know how it is to be stuck with a difficult client.)

Somewhere on here, I saw a resource mentioned for getting logos designed. Basically, you could submit your job, designers would do mockups and you could choose a design based on the mockup and go from there. It eliminated tons of wasted time and paying for mockup after mockup without getting wha you really wanted.

I don't remember the site now, but I need something similar for a book cover if there is such a thing. This is for a real-world, published book. So the specs are going to be different than for Web sites or other electronic design.

Resources? Suggestions? Recommendations?

I need all of it that I can get! )

Thanks so much!

Michelle

P.S. We often see people coming here with desperate stories, sob stories about how they don't have a job, lost their job and/or are in desperate financial straits for whatever reason. I'm in a difficult financial position right now since I just lost my job.

I'm trying to approach this situation without whining or complaining and just take massive ACTION and grab this opportunity to do what I REALLY want to do. But please make no mistake: I really DO need to get as much done for as little as possible and get it done NOW! I really don't have much money to spend (if any).

Any money I put into a project like this really is almost my last dollar. I'm scared, but this really is what I want to do and I believe in it. So please don't see this post as a call to hit me up with a job for big bucks. I simply don't have it.

Thanks for listening!