# Book covers



## libro (Dec 3, 2008)

Am I the only one in love with book covers?  I'm so intrigued by them.  No wonder so much time is spent designing a cover.  I find myself almost disappointed when I fall "in love" with a cover and don't like the sample chapter or plot or author!


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## David J. Guyton (Jan 6, 2009)

I often go into book stores and try to turn my mind off and just focus on what covers attract my attention. A lot of the time they are boring books, but many have nice covers and it's fun to do.

It's a shame really, but people really DO judge a book by its cover. A great cover doesn't mean you have a great book, but a bad cover is sure to get you ignored.


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## Linda Cannon-Mott (Oct 28, 2008)

Book covers are what I miss about DTB.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Linda Cannon-Mott said:


> Book covers are what I miss about DTB.


I don't exactly miss DTB covers. Since I read 3-4 books at a time, the covers helped me keep track of which one I was picking up. With the K, I have to stop and think.


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## ScottBooks (Oct 28, 2008)

I think I've posted this recently in another book cover thread but here it is again:

http://www.abebooks.com/books/great-fiction-covers.shtml?cm_ven=nl&cm_cat=nl&cm_pla=cme-nwb&cm_ite=feature


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## BK (Feb 5, 2009)

ScottBooks said:


> I think I've posted this recently in another book cover thread but here it is again:
> 
> http://www.abebooks.com/books/great-fiction-covers.shtml?cm_ven=nl&cm_cat=nl&cm_pla=cme-nwb&cm_ite=feature


Great link, Scott! I enjoyed seeing the nice artwork there -- and the covers DID tempt me to buy some of the books!


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## Neekeebee (Jan 10, 2009)

Linda Cannon-Mott said:


> Book covers are what I miss about DTB.


I agree! When I first got the Kindle, I thought wouldn't it be nice if the screensaver automatically showed the cover of the book you were last reading? Now I'd be happy if Amazon would just put the actual cover (or covers!) on the Kindle books, instead of the generic titles that often show up instead.

N


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## Robin (Dec 11, 2008)

Neekeebee,

Great idea! I would love to see the cover as the screen saver.


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## libro (Dec 3, 2008)

Has anyone written to Kindle feedback about this?  I might try to send a note off myself!


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## egh34 (Jan 11, 2009)

The miss the covers almost as much as I miss the page numbers! Plus, I think that is one of the reasons we all like the Oberon covers, it gives us something pretty to look at!!


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## VMars (Feb 8, 2009)

Yeah, I miss book covers and page numbers too. *sigh* If only the locations made some kind of sense but it really doesn't.   

It's a good thing I love everything else about my Kindle, or I'd have a real problem.


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## JimJ (Mar 3, 2009)

egh34 said:


> The miss the covers almost as much as I miss the page numbers! Plus, I think that is one of the reasons we all like the Oberon covers, it gives us something pretty to look at!!


I thought I would really miss page numbers because I'm really OCD about keeping track of how many pages I have left (I'm the same way when watching a DVD, I'm always checking to see how much time is left on the movie). I've actually found that I like the locations/progress bar combo much better. I like how I can open to a book and immediately have an idea of how long it is, as opposed to flipping to the back of a DTB to see how many pages and risk accidentally being spoiled. I do miss covers though.


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## Christina (Feb 4, 2009)

What I don't like is when I've bought a Kindle book having been partially enticed by the beautiful cover art - only to find that once it's downloaded to my Kindle, there's either no cover at all, or just a text one. I always look at the book's cover on the Kindle first thing.


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## libro (Dec 3, 2008)

Christina said:


> What I don't like is when I've bought a Kindle book having been partially enticed by the beautiful cover art - only to find that once it's downloaded to my Kindle, there's either no cover at all, or just a text one. I always look at the book's cover on the Kindle first thing.


Me, too, Christina, and I'm almost always disappointed with mere words!


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## VMars (Feb 8, 2009)

> Me, too, Christina, and I'm almost always disappointed with mere words!


And me, also! What is up with that? The Kindle can obviously handle pictures! They should at least try!


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

It is disappointing that not all of the books have the cover art embedded.

I know some people have edited the meta-data for their books and it seems like they've added cover art?  Anyone?  Or maybe I've gotten confused, it happens so easily... 

Betsy


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## koland (Nov 24, 2008)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> It is disappointing that not all of the books have the cover art embedded.
> 
> I know some people have edited the meta-data for their books and it seems like they've added cover art? Anyone? Or maybe I've gotten confused, it happens so easily...
> 
> Betsy


If the book is DRM free (and some at Amazon are),it's fairly easy to replace the cover. In fact, using Calibre, you don't even have to do more than click a couple of times (it'll go grab the cover from librarything.com, if you have a free or paid account).

With DRM, it is a little trickier, but some of the meta editors will do so.


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## Kind (Jan 28, 2009)

I'll admit, I get drawn in by the covers as well.


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## David J. Guyton (Jan 6, 2009)

Hey can anyone who has my book tell me if there is a cover included? I uploaded one but I don't know if it was just for amazon.com or if it goes to the Kindle.


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## marianneg (Nov 4, 2008)

David J. Guyton said:


> Hey can anyone who has my book tell me if there is a cover included? I uploaded one but I don't know if it was just for amazon.com or if it goes to the Kindle.


David, if you just uploaded the cover where it told you to upload a cover, I'm pretty sure it doesn't go into the book. You would have to embed the image of the cover into the file that you uploaded.


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## Neekeebee (Jan 10, 2009)

David J. Guyton said:


> Hey can anyone who has my book tell me if there is a cover included? I uploaded one but I don't know if it was just for amazon.com or if it goes to the Kindle.


David,
I just took a look on my Kindle and your book does not have the cover art included. Too bad...it's a nice picture.

N


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## Kathy (Nov 5, 2008)

I still look at covers whenever I'm out shopping. They also entice me when looking for books on Amazon, but I don't really miss them once I have bought it and it is on my Kindle. I've finally gotten use to the numbering system on the Kindle. There was a thread recently that explained the numbering very well. After that, I was able to think of the locations as page numbers and that was a nice surprise.


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## frojazz (Feb 10, 2009)

I used this thread to help me today:
http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,1376.0.html

I used Mobi2Mobi GUI to change metadata (my Kindle had the wrong title or author for several books) but there seemed to be a way to add an image to the book as well.

Anyone know more about manually adding covers to books?


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## David J. Guyton (Jan 6, 2009)

Neekeebee said:


> David,
> I just took a look on my Kindle and your book does not have the cover art included. Too bad...it's a nice picture.
> 
> N


Well that's unfortunate. I'll have to do something about that....too bad everyone who bought it already won't get the picture though. Sorry folks!


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## Christina (Feb 4, 2009)

frojazz said:


> I used this thread to help me today:
> http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,1376.0.html
> 
> I used Mobi2Mobi GUI to change metadata (my Kindle had the wrong title or author for several books) but there seemed to be a way to add an image to the book as well.
> ...


If you're using Mobi2Mobi GUI, you just click Open Image at the lower left, browse for your cover pic, and then make sure that Use Image and Use as Thumbnail are checked before you hit the Convert button. You can also add a cover image with calibre, but will have to convert to mobi format to embed it in the file itself.

As far as I know, this will only work with non-DRM files...


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## frojazz (Feb 10, 2009)

Thanks, Christina.  I was only checking "use as thumbnail," but I'm just so happy that I got my book names and authors straightened out!

I hope that in the future, more books have the cover as part of the file.  I know it takes up more space, and it is just one more thing to do, but sometimes the cover has some useful info (ie. number in the series) or is just so beautiful that it needs to be part of the book.


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## KMA (Mar 11, 2009)

I like covers when shopping for books, but I don't miss them too much on the Kindle yet. That might change, though, as my list of Kindle books grows and expands.


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