Hi Stephen,
Thanks for joining us here. Unfortunately this rumor is promoted by a few ignorant people who have no understanding of the facts. I am good friends with the original publisher of the books, and they donated the final remaining stock of the Ringing Cedars books to us: https://ringingcedarsbooks.com/
They have published before on their old website, and told me directly, that the text between the 2nd edition (black covers) and 1st edition (green covers) is identical. This is something that everyone can verify for themselves, so I’m shocked that this rumor still is around. Only Book 1 was revised in a few places because of the deeper understanding gained after the editor and translator had finished translating the entire series. The text in Books 2 – 8.2 is exactly the same.
The reason the covers were changed was not some crazy dark forces conspiracy as some uninformed people would say — it’s because the green book covers were not being received well by a Western audience.
One of the original publishers passed away recently in 2022, but before that happened, he posted in our Telegram chat some messages clarifying all of this. I’ve attached his screenshots here for you and everyone else to read. He was a great man of high integrity.