# Is there a way to see a back cover on kindle?



## IronHorse (Nov 4, 2015)

I know that selling on amazon we only see a front cover, and that's what sells the book, but you never see a bsck cover, so maybe those are only for paperbacks. Am I missing something, or is a back cover not part of the kindle experience?


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## Eltanin Publishing (Mar 24, 2011)

An image of the back cover could be put into a kindle book, but most publishers don't bother. If the book isn't sold in paperback, a back cover was probably never designed. And even if it was, if it's just quotes or blurbs, there's no real need for the image of the back cover to be a part of the kindle book. If the paperback is on createspace, and the kindle and paperback are linked on Amazon, you might be able to see the back cover. You can, with this book we publish (simply used as an example, not a sales pitch): http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0615489338


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## H7Py49 (Mar 17, 2016)

I don't normally look at the back cover, but always check out the copyright page for the year of publishing.










_Edited to shrink image to accommodate those using mobile devices or older monitors. Thanks for understanding. --Betsy_


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## pdworkman (Jan 17, 2015)

No, they only post back cover for paperbacks. If you have put out both, your products should be linked, and you can click on paperback and look at the back cover of the paperback. But the Kindle copy only gets a front cover on the product page.


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## IronHorse (Nov 4, 2015)

pdworkman said:


> No, they only post back cover for paperbacks. If you have put out both, your products should be linked, and you can click on paperback and look at the back cover of the paperback. But the Kindle copy only gets a front cover on the product page.


Thanks for the info. I thought so but in this computer generated world you never know.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I have seen some publishers put the back cover into the kindle book. I wish I could recall now which one does it. I personally love it when they are in. 
I even seen some that put the step back in it, just like the paperback has. Usually in historical romance. Again, I can't recall which of the publishers I read does that, but it does exist.


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## barryem (Oct 19, 2010)

In my paperback days I often looked at the back cover to get an idea about books I wasn't familiar with but I always read it skeptically.  The tradition seems to be to tell a lot of lies on back covers; anything that might get you to buy the book.  They'll sometimes have a summary of the story and I don't recall seeing a summary that was true.  Not ever.  And I read paperback books for decades.

I'm fine with leaving off the back covers and besides, now they have Amazons page for that book to tell their lies. 

Actually the web page descriptions of books are a lot more honest than the back covers were. They're badly hyped and I take them with a grain of salt but at least they're not full of lies.

Barry


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

barryem said:


> In my paperback days I often looked at the back cover to get an idea about books I wasn't familiar with but I always read it skeptically. The tradition seems to be to tell a lot of lies on back covers; anything that might get you to buy the book. They'll sometimes have a summary of the story and I don't recall seeing a summary that was true. Not ever. And I read paperback books for decades.
> 
> I'm fine with leaving off the back covers and besides, now they have Amazons page for that book to tell their lies.
> 
> ...


I loved partial quotes: "...the best book I ever read" by Famous Author or Reviewer, and you know the ellipses mean they trimmed off the "Definitely not"

"Amazing..."


Spoiler



"that this book ever got published!"


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Not seen any lies on the back of books I read over the years thankfully.  

I just like those touches when I read a ebook. As close to the paperbook as possible. 

As a substitute to that quick blurb thing on the back of paper I like a short blurb at the start of a book. 
Although I guess now I don't need it anymore on my Voyage as we have "About the book now". But with my basic and keyboard kindle, would have been nice to have quick access to that blurb. When you have 100's or 1000's of books on the kindle or cloud, one can't remember anymore what is what. It helps those of us that are mood reader. 

I never really paid much attention to the other author blurbs on the back, only the story blurb. The other author blurb is on the same level to me than nowadays the "NYT bestseller", USA today bestseller and the Amazon besteller tags found on so many books now. Its all advertising. 

Story blurbs though help to pick what book to read next.


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## barryem (Oct 19, 2010)

Chad Winters said:


> I loved partial quotes: "...the best book I ever read" by Famous Author or Reviewer, and you know the ellipses mean they trimmed off the "Definitely not"
> 
> "Amazing..."
> 
> ...


In the past couple of years they've begun to say things like "Perfect for the reader of xxx" and I'm not sure why that irritates me so much but it really does. I've spent a bit of time trying to decide what about it angers me but I get too angry thinking about it to think about it so I guess it's just a gut feeling. 

Barry


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

maybe because it implies you are so shallow that you will only read books that are a thinly veiled knock off of other books you liked


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## pdworkman (Jan 17, 2015)

I've asked Amazon about multiple graphics on the product page for books (either print or digital) because I have seen some books where there are multiple product views for a book, but they say it is not possible for KDP. It may be possible if you have some other kind of Amazon Vendor account, but I've been unable to tease the information out of them.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Chad Winters said:


> I loved partial quotes: "...the best book I ever read" by Famous Author or Reviewer, and you know the ellipses mean they trimmed off the "Definitely not"
> 
> "Amazing..."
> 
> ...


It's like the quotes on movie ads. I always judge by size/readability of the quoted person's name.

_"Best Movie Since Gone With the Wind"_ --The Bucksnort* Tennesee Weekly Herald

Betsy

*Real place


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

From a writer's point of view, my back covers consist of the blurb and my author biography, so I'd consider the book's page on Amazon to basically be the back cover. It also serves, pretty much, the same purpose.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Speaker-To-Animals said:


> From a writer's point of view, my back covers consist of the blurb and my author biography, so I'd consider the book's page on Amazon to basically be the back cover. It also serves, pretty much, the same purpose.


Now, on the newer Kindles, anyway, have an "About this book" in the menu that contains "About this book," "About the author," "More by the author" and the current rating. So that takes the place of the blurb. And one doesn't have to be connected to read this.

Betsy


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Now, on the newer Kindles, anyway, have an "About this book" in the menu that contains "About this book," "About the author," "More by the author" and the current rating. So that takes the place of the blurb. And one doesn't have to be connected to read this.
> 
> Betsy


Hmmm. . . I thought you did have to be connected to see the 'about the book' . . . but I might be wrong; I'm almost always connected so I don't have any personal experience of NOT being able to see it.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Another reason you won't see many back covers in Kindle books is that images increase the file size, sometimes significantly, and Amazon charges the author for every megabyte for most books between $2.99 and $9.99. Those extra pennies can add up quickly. But I like the idea of a back cover. I may try adding some to my ebooks just for fun.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Ann in Arlington said:


> Hmmm. . . I thought you did have to be connected to see the 'about the book' . . . but I might be wrong; I'm almost always connected so I don't have any personal experience of NOT being able to see it.


I know you used to be; but I did test it before I posted. Let me go check again.

Just tried about a half dozen books, including some that I hadn't opened before, with my Voyage in airplane mode. And with my PW in airplane mode, again with some books I hadn't opened before. You might want to try it with yours!

Betsy


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> I know you used to be; but I did test it before I posted. Let me go check again.
> 
> Just tried about a half dozen books, including some that I hadn't opened before, with my Voyage in airplane mode. And with my PW in airplane mode, again with some books I hadn't opened before. You might want to try it with yours!
> 
> Betsy


That's good then! . . . I guess it's something that's attached to the book file directly vs just linked in the store. Cool!


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## crebel (Jan 15, 2009)

Ann in Arlington said:


> That's good then! . . . I guess it's something that's attached to the book file directly vs just linked in the store. Cool!


I'm just guessing, but I bet that's why so many experienced significant battery drain for a while after the last update. If there are a lot of books on the Kindle, the re-indexing probably took a significantly longer time to make that information available "off-line". I love this new feature.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

crebel said:


> I'm just guessing, but I bet that's why so many experienced significant battery drain for a while after the last update. If there are a lot of books on the Kindle, the re-indexing probably took a significantly longer time to make that information available "off-line". I love this new feature.


Good point, Chris! I always keep my wireless on, too, like Ann. But I took a couple long plane trips recently, to the west coast and back, and I think that's when I noticed it. Since I had to have it in airplane mode.

Betsy


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## GBear (Apr 23, 2009)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> I know you used to be; but I did test it before I posted. Let me go check again.
> 
> Just tried about a half dozen books, including some that I hadn't opened before, with my Voyage in airplane mode. And with my PW in airplane mode, again with some books I hadn't opened before. You might want to try it with yours!
> 
> Betsy


On my second-gen Paperwhite, I still see just "Book Description" in the menu (unless I'm looking in the wrong place). And clicking on that generates a request to turn off airplane mode, as it always has. Either my Kindle isn't new enough for this feature or the information doesn't get transferred when sideloading books via USB, as all my books have been. Too bad, as it's something I think I'd like.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

GBear said:


> On my second-gen Paperwhite, I still see just "Book Description" in the menu (unless I'm looking in the wrong place). And clicking on that generates a request to turn off airplane mode, as it always has. Either my Kindle isn't new enough for this feature or the information doesn't get transferred when sideloading books via USB, as all my books have been. Too bad, as it's something I think I'd like.


GBear--

I have a second generation Paperwhite, too, it's what I used in testing. It sounds like your PW may not have the latest software? Check to see if it's at 5.7.2.1: Home page > Menu > Settings > Menu > Device Info.

If it's not at 5.7.2.1, you'll need to update the software. If it is at 5.7.2.1, perhaps it's only newer books? Though I did test with some pretty old books....

Betsy


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

More testing:  I've sorted my books on my Paperwhite by most recent and went back to the beginning of the books loaded on my PW (54 pages). For the older books, "About this book" is there, but doesn't have much, just the title and author.  It isn't until I go forward to about the third page of my 54 pages of books on the Paperwhite listed by "recent" that I am starting to get "About this book" with content (I've not tried every book).  So perhaps this is something being added with newer books; older books may not have any content in that field.  When I tap on the About this book" where there isn't any real content, it doesn't ask me to turn off Airplane mode.  If I turn off Airplane mode and reopen the book and tap "About this Book" it doesn't change what is available.  So I think it's something that works with newer books.  Or books that have been updated since I bought them.

Betsy


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## GBear (Apr 23, 2009)

Betsy,

I do have the latest software, and I did a bit more testing myself. I found "About this book," from within a book, different from the "Book Description" while in list mode. When I clicked it (tried both library and recently purchased books), I again got the request to exit airplane mode. However, after I declined, a quick message flashed on the screen to the effect that something was getting updated. For the next several minutes, any screen I was on except book text showed the animated circular arrow in the upper left corner. The Kindle may have been trying to access and download the book information for one or more books in the library. I'm assuming it gave up after a while because it wasn't connected, but my theory is that one needs to have internet connection at some point to obtain the book information. (This may also be true for X-ray data, which I similarly do not have for my books.)


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Yes, the "About this book" is inside the book.  And yes, I think it has to do with updating, as Chris suggested.  I didn't have any of my books suggest I should leave Airplane mode; but I keep my wifi on all the time and it's been a few days now since my device updated.

Betsy


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## barryem (Oct 19, 2010)

I thought I remembered "about the book" being added in an update so I googled it and I found this article:

http://the-digital-reader.com/2014/09/17/amazon-add-new-reading-features-kindle-platform-fall/

and this one:

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2014/amazon-adds-features-to-latest-kindles/

both from late 2014 announcing that and other new features. So probably any book available on Kindle before then won't have the feature. Probably the books that just show the author and title in About the Book are examples of that. Of course I'm just guessing.

I would also guess that some book updates will add that feature.

Barry


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## Nils Morten (May 3, 2018)

Not sure if this is the right place but is CreateSpace winding down?


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Nils Morten said:


> Not sure if this is the right place but is CreateSpace winding down?


That sounds like a question for our members who are writers/publishers. Ask in the Writers' Cafe area.


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