Life, Interrupted

Gentle Readers,

I need some input from horsy people.  What I need is someone to look at a very nice drawing of a unicorn/horse, and help me explain to the talented artist what is needed to clearly delineate whether this is a three month old colt or a full grown unicorn.  I've already explained that the colt would be as tall as the character (to its ears) and the adult would make the 5'9" character come up to the animal's shoulder.  (Unicorns are big suckers in my world, especially the males.)  Also, the colt would have a horn perhaps 6-9" long.  The adult would have a horn 2.5-3 feet long.

I can explain in one line what I think the problem is for me, but would like a second opinion/confirmation of this,  I pinged two horsy authors, but they are apparently very busy and haven't gotten back to me.  Does anyone else have a moment to look at a mockup?  (Insert of three month old Lipp included to help create explanation.)

Trying to keep my cover artist moving along...

I'm down to my last two copies of Night Calls, so I can't let any more out. But I am trading books to artist Elizabeth Berrien, the wondrous wire sculptor who weaves metal and light to become incredible things. She is making me a tiny Chinese dragon! Here's her unicorn page:

http://www.wirelady.com/berrienwireunicornpage.html

She won Best in show with a 3D wall piece called the Entwife. It was AWESOME. I must win the MegaMillion soon....

Everyone, I am about to plunge into the world of custom artwork for my Alfreda novels. (Yes, I have pretty much decided not to submit them to NYC. The agent will get other things from me, but I do not expect a house to offer me a contract I could sign.)

This is not going to be cheap, and apparently I need to decide up front which group I'm going to work with for the POD version. The templates vary. The artist can make a print cover and then create the ebook cover from it, but the reverse doesn't happen easily, if at all. So -- this is your chance to express yourself.

Have you tried any of the POD suppliers? Create Space? Lightning Source? Lulu? I'm going to search for quality vs.cost vs. distribution options. I want acid-free paper. We're talking three books that I hope convention vendors will be interested in trying out, that I hope might make their way into bookstores. But I also realize that sales online, even of print, may be all that will happen, since trade paperback books are so much higher in price (last I checked) than mass market books.

I'm interested in your experiences and opinions, if you would like to share them. You can contact me by message, if you want to comment privately.

I want to hear your war stories. I can only afford to do this once -- screwing up will set me back years and money I don't have to spare. So, anyone who has time to share their story? This is the moment.

And yes, I will share conclusions. An Excel spreadsheet will be born!

Thank you.