Comments on: Why no color covers for ebooks?

By: Dee

Dee — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:48:25 +0000

Most publishers do not have the digital rights to the cover art of the title – so they just strip the cover image and use the title page as the cover. Other publishers create a generic cover and use that (these tend to be in color). Actual cover images ARE used for marketing reasons though.

By: trav

trav — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:57:50 +0000

We provide a color cover for every book that we submit. The problem is that when publishers use a service bureau through their distributor, they get to submit one pdf. That pdf is then taken by the bureau and reformatted for all the various devices. So far the three we have worked with all save for the “lowest common denominator” and will not work up various files of various configurations for different platforms.

So it’s one file in and it’s a one-size-fits-all file that the distributor pushes out to all the devices and device stores.

They all say this will be changing soon, but it sure isn’t soon enough.

By: pond

pond — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:58:53 +0000

I wonder if it is possible that there are rights issues. Also: a separate design for a $30 hardback and a $10 ebook leads to possibly convincing buyers that the content of the hardback is somehow ‘better.’ Remember the old days of the 1950s when cheap paperback editions screamed with lurid pulpy covers, and hardbound editions were restrained and highbrow?

Another consideration beyond color/grayscale is one of size. The level of detail we can distinguish on a trade paperback cover is considerably more than the thumbnail that shows up on any website ebook store.

Still: designing a separate cover must mean an extra expense. Seems as though publishers would be looking for any way to cut costs these days. And a consistent cover design and look across all the editions sells books.

By: Steve Jordan

Steve Jordan — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 01:33:16 +0000

For some reason, many print publishers have this belief that readers of ebooks don’t want the color cover that print readers get.

It’s just another sign of how little actual thought has been spent on e-books by traditional publishers.

By: Dave C.

Dave C. — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:26:13 +0000

We provide a color cover for every eBook (same cover as print book). This is for a bix six publisher…

By: Laura Conrad

Laura Conrad — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 17:02:44 +0000

Paul writes:

> It’s like there is no quality control in the generation of an ebook.

I’ve been finding worse examples than that of lack of quality control. My copy of “The Confusion” by Neal Stephenson from “William Morrow, An Imprint of Harper Collins Publishers” has the German double s (ß) encoded wrong, so it comes out looking like an accented e (é). It makes reading scenes that take place in a Schloß difficult.