I see nothing wrong with my cover it just a woman smoking a cigarette.
How is this excessive??
I sent a ticket to the support team 
I think thats against guidlines.
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Using drugs on a cover is not recommended as it will be most likely rejected. It is considered promoting it.
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I think because sheâs smoking, it also depends on who reviewed it. Try uploading it again and see what happens
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yeah itâs against guidelines, your character is smoking. you are allowed to show it in your story (as long as you do not promote it) but cover guidelines are pretty strict
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Showing in a story is basically the same as showing it on a coverâŠ
What difference does it make?
Yeah, I donât think itâs allowed⊠they donât want people to view smoking as a good thing and its against guidelines
thatâs so weird though i saw a published story with smoking on the cover⊠
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and promoting is different from including it in the story
promoting is basically saying this is a good thing or its advertising or something, although you werenât promoting, right? idk
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If you look at the romance genre section on the app, most covers are couples half naked in sexual positions. Isnât that violating the guidelines as well??
well i know i guess they arent violating too much so maybe episode still approves it? this is weird
i know itâs not fair and the cover looks beautiful btw. but i would re-try it. sometimes it depends on the previewer
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I never promoted smoking cigarettes. My cover is just a lady on the streets smoking a cigarette.
Hereâs a better pic of it
âUncanny Hostelâ is the title
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and even though smoking on covers is against guidelines that doesnât explain how i found a cover with smoking on it 
it was published
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No, actually it is not. A cover is the first thing you see when scrolling through stories to read. It is as I said promoting it according to episode when smoking is not a good thing to influence on the cover. It is unfortunate your cover got rejected but you should have read the guidelines before making a cover for your story. They are there for a reason, I suggest reading through them next time. This is not episodes fault. When it is in a story you can tell people that it is bad for you, you canât do that on that on a cover. Also a character smoking in a story is hardly noticeable compared to a cover with it. And yes there are many stories with inappropriate covers but that is up to who reviews it and also on their status on the app usually big authors can get away with it more than smaller authors. Just because someone else does something and got away with it doesnât mean you can. That is the cold hard truth.
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Thank you findmylogic on IG made it for me. & I submitted a ticket because thatâs unfair where these popular romance stories with covers that is violating the guidelines are getting approved while mine is no where near explicit.
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honestly this is just inappropriate . sure maybe that reviewer doesnât agree with the guidelines either and lets it slide. thing is itâs also their job to ensure they follow their directions from Pocket Gems. itâs annoying for half people on episode to get approved and get away with risky covers and the other half to just face problems like this because they saw covers depicting the same thing on the app
Yes they should treat everyone fairly but that is what others have said and if you read the guidelines you can see that this would not be an okay cover to use.
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And covers portraying kinky sexual contract relationships is a good thing? Popular author or not, I believe a guideline should be followed no matter whatâs your status on Episode. Whatâs the point of creating one if half of the people gets away with it?
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well it said âexcessiveâŠâ
i think it means that its okay to include it in a story, but putting it on a cover means that you are using it too much, if you know what i mean?