I haven't heard back yet from that artist (I swear, he'll get back to me in, like October 2012 and will be really snippy that I didn't wait), and I've been having thoughts about doing the cover myself again, since I don't have to draw people. Basically I had the idea of modifying the current placeholder art so that the portal is more dominant and mysterious, and then carrying that over to the other titles so that the portals are always there, lurking. (Yes, in the story the portals are completely invisible, but I figure if you can't take artistic license with your own work, when can you?)
I dunno, I like that artist's work, but there's a real question about how long you wait for someone. If it was just the e-books, I could redo the covers every day from now until doomsday, and it wouldn't make any difference. But for the paperbacks, there's a cost--you have to order new proofs, and there's an extra fee for changing the cover for a book that out on Expanded Distribution.
I also downloaded a couple of title fonts, only to come here and realize that the current lettering works really well in a thumbnail. So maybe I should leave that be.
Oh, and if you're feeling like I need to get a grip about that review, I was just looking at blogs (didn't find anything mind-blowing this time), and this one woman actually solicited so-so reviews about her book! She literally wrote, If you read Book A or Book B, and they just weren't your cup of tea, could you please go over to Amazon and leave a review about how they left you cold! Apparently the feeling is that if all your reviews are fantastic, it's just your buddies helping you out. And obviously getting that review made me rethink how I positioned the book (and alerted me to some formatting issues), so I should be thankful for it. I still don't see asking people to please come trash my book, however--I'm not made of stone.