Don’t you hate it when you buy an ebook, and then someone decides to change the cover image at some point down the line and there’s nothing you can do about it?
Sometimes I like the new covers better, but I really hate it when they change the cover to make it look like the movie or tv show that was based on the book, especially when they put actors from the movie/show on the cover.
Some books seem to have about a dozen different covers, and they get changed all the time.
They’ve been changing the covers on some of Stephen King’s books lately, including The Shining. I like the new cover (pictured left in the image above) a lot better than the old cover (right), but my Kindles still annoyingly show the old cover on the sleep screen when they’re turned off. They show the new cover in the library, but it still shows the old cover in the book.
You can change book covers by using Calibre, but then you have to go through the process of downloading your books to a computer, importing them into Calibre and using a DRM-removal plugin in order to modify them, and then you have to manually change the book cover before sending the ebook to your ereader.
It would be so much easier if you could just long-press a book from your library and then have the option to “Change Cover Image”. Then you could search for cover images online and choose whichever one you want.
Amazon is never going to do anything like that with Kindle books, but it would be a cool feature to have on ebook readers and reading apps in general. Some older books had really unique covers that have since been replaced with more modern generic-looking covers.
Publishers and authors are always changing covers to try and boost sales and catch people’s attention, but I think once you buy an ebook you should be able to decide which cover you want to see. I don’t like how they can randomly change covers anytime they want on books I bought years ago.
The fairly recent change to Terry Pratchett’s book covers were a significant contributing factor to me using Calibre as you mention for my kindle books.
That would be a nice feature to change the book cover. 🙂
(We took a night tour of the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, CO this past July. Our tour guide, Sean, was awesome.)
Yes! I despise it when a book cover changes to the movie tie-in cover. Yuck.
I never update my books and HATE when the cover changes.
I would love to be able to choose the cover image, Amazon should implement your idea.
Personally I don’t care, I never download anything directly from the store. Everything goes through Calibre first and will be sideloaded from there. Not because I pirate my books – I don’t. I always edit the formatting before reading them, though. So changing the cover is as easy as a couple of clicks for me; I change a bunch of other things anyway.
I must say that lots of complaints about various things I’ve read on this blog and elsewhere are pretty much meaningless when you use Calibre to edit and manage your books. But most people don’t, of course.
Until I really started using Calibre I didn’t know you could change covers. Gone now are all the coming soon as a tv show or movie ad style covers or re-release covers. It’s a small thing but it gives my books that little bit more of being mine.
That would be a nice feature, not that I personally see a use for it with my ebooks since I’m usually not displaying the cover anywhere where its more that a rather large thumbnail;
However I am familiar with this feature from my audiobook player (smart audiobook player) which let me choose the covers (or a blank cover) which I do find rather useful.
Does it really matter? I can appreciate that it would be a nice feature, I suppose, but in the end the story is what counts. It is not like you have the covers on display for the public to admire on a bookshelf.
Some eBooks I have in Calibre contain as many as six different covers I’ve found on the ‘Net and liked.
I have a custom ‘template’ that I use when cataloging a new book, that contains the HTML to format the Comments like I like them, including space(s) for additional covers.
I remember books by the cover. Some books I read 40 years ago are burned into my brain with a certain cover and if the cover changes for the ebook, I change it back to the old one I know and love.
Yes! They did this to the Dune books, so u ended up downloading pirate copies that has artwork, not a photo of the movie actors? Hate it!