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For real tho it's tough! fwiw I really do love the cover you have, but I can understand wanting to make it more like, your _own_ cover that more directly reflects the content, after all this work to make a good book.

For me, I have felt a little bit like my cover typography held me back a little bit, more because of the general style and direction I took with my story than anything else. I'm lucky in that my stock was relatively unaltered to get the illustration part across, because my story doesn't work nearly so well without her, but it definitely means omitting details I would have liked to put on the cover as well.

I don't wanna vote in the poll here because my vote is "what will make you happy!" and that's not so easy to encapsulate in an up or down vote. 😁

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Yeah, my main concern for changing it up is because of the desert theme - I love the purple and the flowers and the field, but that imagery doesn't really appear in the book until way later, so I think having a desert theme with purple accents and an epic dragon close up (plus the fact that Casey made it into the story as a more prominent role) makes me think of trying something new.

Worst case scenario, I only change the typography (because I am getting sick of Cinzel Decorative as a font 🥲)

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Yeah my side characters not being depicted at all, considering two of them are pov characters, definitely gives me some like, feelings, but I think my illustration style is just not on the same level as the original artist 🤣😅 maybe someday I'll paint something with the right vibe tho

You could always just do new typography now and pick a future date for a new cover - anniversary editions are popular for this sort of thing and might give you some time to strategize and plan!

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Your cover art style is absolutely epic (and a friend thought it was mine when I shared the derby page with her XD) but yes, an anniversary addition sounds nice.

I will still try for something by the end of the year (for the print version), but no promises.

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ahahaha omg! 💜 This suggests to me that I need to read more of your stuff once we are finally freed from derby kayfabe!! 😁

I am aiming for December or January on print myself! Happy to share whatever resources I find, etc. I'm hoping to get some input from some small press friends about various options over the next two months.

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I mean I say change it but at the same time, the original is still great. I'm cover hunting too and it's so hard! Especially when the artists I like are minimum $500😬 I know one illustrator I love for epic is 1.5k. Gotta be rolling in it before that kind of investment

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Yeah, no. If you let me roll beside you, I may consider it. In the meantime, I'm going to try to create it myself and may even post some progress updates later - if I like the direction it's going in.

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