Greetings cartographers. My names is Jason Luthor, author of the book, The Dream Map. I'm in flux with my agent and am commissioning some art work right now as a precaution should things not work out between him and me. For reference, this was my previous commission at $200 for the cover.

The Dream Map.jpg

The Dream Map itself is a story concerning a young man that can look at fantasy maps, and travel to the world depicted (such as the map of Middle Earth you'd find in Lord of the Rings, although I don't steal other people's stories). The first book takes place in a world called the LaGuna Islands, a world limited to a warm climate series of islands that include several mammoth islands and smaller ones as well. There are two halves to this map and I am attaching the easternmost half here.

Photo Mar 05, 4 02 29 PM.jpg

I am primarily inspired by 'places of interest' type maps in which the typical geographic map is also dotted by locations, such as cities, which are enlarged disproportionately to draw more attention to them, as seen in this map of Eorzea:

ffxiv-maps-eorzea.jpg
I would also point to this map from Deviantart as inspirational

asperia_world_map_by_tsabo6-d80gqdf.jpg

So this map would be fully colored, with places of interest, and be slightly wide to encompass two halves of the world. In my head I can imagine them sitting on opposite pages within the book. I do want the map to be slightly more vibrant than the Eorzea map due to the book's positioning as a young adult fantasy, but do not want the map to necessarily be 'cartoony'.

I don't have a particular resolution in mind but they'd have to be high resolution and I'd like them to be professional or as close to professional looking as possible.

In terms of time frame... I'm greedy and want it next week. Realistically I can see November being a date. Perhaps that is too short; I'm unable to gauge the time it would take to turnaround this project and get it back to me, although I do know the sooner I have it the sooner I can either a.) aggressively market with my agent or b.) aggressively self publish.

Obviously at the minimum I require reproduction rights for this purpose.

As further notes, this is my first post on this board and thus I cannot receive PM. I hope for some response to this thread. Be aware I have queried with several map makers independently, which occurred before I found this website. I consider myself a highly aggressive individual in business and, being an independent contractor myself with a self run business in the Houston metropolitan area, I understand everyone deserves to be paid good money for their work. That said, capitalism can be wonderful at helping balance out costs versus performance.