[Dave Dykema]

Next question about covers: do any of you put your cover in the actual html that goes to Amazon?

I know we put the little icon that shows up on their site to sell the book, but I mean did you put it in the document too?

Any problems? Easy? Hard? Worth the effort or waste of time?

What size does it need to be?

OK, I guess that was many questions...discuss...

 

[Greg Banks]

Yes I do, but I don't send the raw HTML to Kindle DTP. I take the HTML and process it in Mobipocket Creator to create a PRC file. The program makes it easy to insert the cover image into the file.

Kindle 1 and 2 only can show an image 800 pixels tall max, but I usually use a 1200 pixel tall black and white image. The Kindle will shrink it down to fit.

 

[Thumper]

I did not include cover images, simply to save Kindle owners a little data real estate.

 

[liannallama]

As a reader, I love looking at the cover art and hope that all authors would put it in their books!  I don't care if it takes more space! 

 

[koolmnbv]

As a reader, I love looking at the cover art

I also love getting the cover art with my kindle books.

 

[Michael R. Hicks]

I did not include cover images, simply to save Kindle owners a little data real estate.

Ahhh, load up their memory! BUWAHAHAHAAA!!

Besides, the cover images in the KB files generally get resized/resampled down to around 64K, regardless of the size file you use for the Kindle file creation. So the covers really are a pittance storage-wise...

 

[Dave Dykema]

Now it seems like a bit of a debate. I'm not sure what to do

I need more opinions!

 

[intinst]

I too like the cover images with my books, just seems more complete that way.

 

[Ann in Arlington]

I like cover images. . . what I wish the Kindle would do automatically is tie the cover image, if included,  to the most recently opened content so that when I put my Kindle in sleep mode, the picture shown is the cover of the book I'm reading.  Then, when I pick it up later, I'll see the cover as the 'screensaver' and immediately remember which was the book I was last reading.  I think this would be much more useful than just showing random pictures apropos of pretty much nothing.

 

[Greg Banks]

I think a Kindle book with a cover image is a more polished, professional presentation. One of my pet peeves with the ebooks I bought from Fictionwise was that they never included the covers, but that seems to have changed now. At least it has with the magazines I buy there, which never had covers before.

 

[koolmnbv]

I think a Kindle book with a cover image is a more polished, professional presentation.

agreed

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I have a question for you readers that like seeing the book cover in your Kindle. How important is this issue when the original covers are very colorful, but you can only see B&W versions in the Kindle? I did not bother with the covers on my own books because they are very colorful, a theme that I think fits the content. If you readers are saying that, yes, you really want to see covers, even though they are a reproduced in a B&W format, I shall consider adding my covers. I recently read Mike Hicks' book that explains the best way to upload a cover for best results.

 

[Michael R. Hicks]

Well, I think the key to the images for use on the Kindle is to make sure they're optimized for display, not so much in terms of size, but as grey scale images that are to be displayed on a device that only has four (16 for K2) levels of gray. A lot of times images that look very nice in color, and even "regular" greyscale/B&W look terrible on the Kindle without taking those factors into account.

I believe someone put a book out on that - Greg, do you know which one I mean? I'd look it up, but I'm so bleary eyed right now I'm not even sure I'm responding to the right thread! LOL!

 

[vwkitten]

I put the covers in on the first page, but because I know that it will only be a screen image, I keep it pretty small graphically.  And I agree on inserting the image in a black and white format.  I have about ten images of my front cover for different things now, and one is the interior image for the Kindle in black and white, compressed to 800 pixels tall and saved in jpeg format.

Hope this helps...
Trish

 

[Greg Banks]

Yes, but I can't think of the name right now. I think I have it on my Kindle. I'll have to look.

 

[marianneg]

Add me to those who like to see the cover.  I'm always a little disappointed when it isn't there, although it's definitely not a deal-breaker.

 

[Greg Banks]

Here's the book on how to format graphics for the Kindle:



Graphics on the Kindle (both Kindle 1 and Kindle 2) (The "Graphics on the Kindle" Series)

 

[Edward C. Patterson]

I'm proud of my covers as I design them myself and try to include them. I do not use .html for the Kindle, but mobipocket's .prc, which converts easily from word doc. To get the cover the correct size, I insert it on the first page of the word doc, view at 100% and reduce the size until it fits comfortably into the top 1/3rd of the screen view. When I convert it to .prc, it comes out poifekt. Hope that helps. BTW, I always feel robbed when I get a Kindle book that doesn't include the cover. One of mine is missing it and I need to correct that so I'm not a hypocrite.

Edward C. Patterson

 

[Dave Dykema]

I put my cover as the first thing in my htm as a jpeg. It's sized 500 on the longest side. It didn't show up.

Is there a quick fix to this, without doing it as a mobi thing?

 

[permit1850]

Oh jeeeez  , now I have to do another revision. I had no idea that folks wanted a cover image in their Kindle works. It may come out looking funky in grayscale though.