I'm hanging on a thread...

The message of The Hanging Man is knowing when and what to sacrifice. Be clear about who you are and let all your actions and decisions hang from that vision. Even if your actions feel clumsy or out of sync with the rest of the world, sacrifice their favorable opinion rather than be untrue to yourself. Sacrifice. Yes, that's the keyword when it comes to my writing. I know what I want as a writer. I want to see my stories published. Simple, no? No, not that simple. What are my changes of having one of my stories printed? Very slim taking into account the competition. Of course, there's always the ever-growing epublishing market. I've been a supporter of epublishing. I believe it's a great alternative when it comes to publishing. But... (Yes, you knew a "but" was coming, didn't you?) I admit I have an issue with epublishers. The lousy covers. Okay a few of them have nice covers. But let's face it, the quality of ebook covers is terribly poor. Using those programs to try to create people... They lack realism. Oh pleeze... Keep those images for video games. They have no place in book covers. And another thing I found out is that quality of cover depends on the length of the story. If you submit for one of those short ones (5 - 12 K words), they won't bother to put the best efforts into having the best cover. Okay, that does it! They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. Excuse me?! Covers sell a book! If the cover is attractive, the reader is more willing to pick it up, and then read the blurb. That goes for both printed books and ebooks. The cover is the image that sells. Just like the cover of a magazine helps sell it. Or the image of a store makes it appealing for customers. What to sacrifice? At this point, I don't know. The only thing I'm sure of is that I'm not willing to sacrifice my work to see published. I'm the kind of person that demand quality at all times. If my stories have to be good enough to be published, then why should I settle for one those lame covers? Of course so many writers are so desperate to see their names in a cover, they don't care about the quality of it. All they want is to say, "I've got my first cover." Not me. So, should I sacrifice my beliefs in order to get my stories published? Am I being too demanding? Should I settle for less for now? When to sacrifice it? I've been thinking about the many writing contests lately. All of them by epublishing companies. Are they right for me? If so... Which one will be right for me? Perhaps in my own desire to see one of my stories printed, I'm not taking into consideration that many of these contest might not be right for me or my writing. Am I ready to participate in one of them? Am I ready for the outcome? The possibility of winning bothers me more than not winning. I can't stand the thought of contracts. But this is something I've talked about before. It's just that I don't feel the moment is right for participating in any of the contests.