PRS-350 Book Cover Missing

sixfoot9psu · 01-20-2011, 03:06 PM

Hey, I am new to ereaders and bought the pocket 350 on sale at best buy yesterday and downloaded my first book onto it directly from sony's reader store and the book cover image does not show up on the device's homepage...it shows the title page of the book instead. Any idea how I can fix this? As I buy more books I'd like to have the book covers displayed instead of all the title pages...

grooks · 01-20-2011, 03:36 PM

Sometimes with ebooks, the publisher does not purchase the artwork rights. In these cases they will have a standard cover or in your case the title page of the book.

sixfoot9psu · 01-20-2011, 04:27 PM

is there any way to edit it to add the book cover image to the file? i tried using Calibre but the epub is locked by DRM...

the image appears in the sony store, so i thought it would appear on my reader as well?

elcreative · 01-20-2011, 04:36 PM

As grooks said but if you really want the cover then you will have to remove the DRM, get a picture of the cover and add it via calibre, making sure that the it is included in the file when saved...

Quote:

Originally Posted by sixfoot9psu

is there any way to edit it to add the book cover image to the file? i tried using Calibre but the epub is locked by DRM...

the image appears in the sony store, so i thought it would appear on my reader as well?

SeaBookGuy · 01-20-2011, 05:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sixfoot9psu

is there any way to edit it to add the book cover image to the file? i tried using Calibre but the epub is locked by DRM...

the image appears in the sony store, so i thought it would appear on my reader as well?

There is, but before we go any further, please connect your reader to see whether there's a file called "main_thumbnail" (under "thumbnails" most likely) for the book that shows your title page as the image. If so, delete that one and replace it with the cover art (jpg file) you expected, calling that one "main_thumbnail" so the reader knows to display it.

If there is no such file, I'd have to get back to you with a somewhat complicated approach to try.

I've run into this often with library books.

Bookworm_Girl · 01-20-2011, 05:58 PM

I've been using SeaBookGuy's suggestion after he recommended it in another thread. Works great and now my cover list looks pretty! I have been getting cover images from the goodreads website. Then I resize them to 168px width by 217px height and save to the thumbnail folder on the ereader. Each book has its own subfolder where the jpg is stored. It is important to keep the same filename.

EDIT: Thought I should add that the majority of my books have DRM that I've been using this suggestion for.

sixfoot9psu · 01-20-2011, 06:47 PM

it worked! thanks SeaBookGuy!

SeaBookGuy · 01-20-2011, 07:07 PM

More than welcome -- I've run into a situation where I've had to create a thumbnail folder "from scratch", which is kind of a pain - to do and explain!

WendyH · 01-21-2011, 07:16 PM

I tried this on one of the books I bought and it didn't work. I found the main thumbnail, renamed it 'backup' and removed it from the folder, put the cover I wanted in there and renamed it main_thumbnail, and it still showed the old one. I even reset the computer to see if it made a difference and it still showed the old one. When I went back into the folder to check it had two main_thumbnail files in there, the original and the one I had put there, so it is still getting that info from somewhere.
I also have the ebook in the library (on my computer) as a back up, so I was wondering if that had anything to do with it not working, but I can't see where to change the thumbnail file in the library.
Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong? I am a bit pedantic about my covers, and it is really annoying me that two books I paid quite a bit for have a stupid generic 'Penguin' for the cover.

jackie_w · 01-21-2011, 08:03 PM

FYI - Anyone reading this thread who also uses Calibre (v7.40 onward), you can get it to maintain your thumbnails automatically when you connect the Sony to Calibre, so they match the covers you keep in Calibre (rather than what may be in the book). It should work for EPUB, TXT, RTF and PDF - DRM'd or non-DRM.

If you're interested you need to configure Calibre for your Sony via the relevant checkboxes in Preferences - Plugins - Device Interface - Sony - Customize.

Note that to work, metadata management must be set to automatic in Preferences - Sending books to device. You probably don't want to do this if you use ADE or Sony Reader to manage Collections manually as Calibre will also maintain your Collections automatically as well.

Bookworm_Girl · 01-22-2011, 11:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WendyH

I tried this on one of the books I bought and it didn't work. I found the main thumbnail, renamed it 'backup' and removed it from the folder, put the cover I wanted in there and renamed it main_thumbnail, and it still showed the old one. I even reset the computer to see if it made a difference and it still showed the old one. When I went back into the folder to check it had two main_thumbnail files in there, the original and the one I had put there, so it is still getting that info from somewhere.
I also have the ebook in the library (on my computer) as a back up, so I was wondering if that had anything to do with it not working, but I can't see where to change the thumbnail file in the library.
Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong? I am a bit pedantic about my covers, and it is really annoying me that two books I paid quite a bit for have a stupid generic 'Penguin' for the cover.

Hi, WendyH. Here's what I did. I didn't delete the old thumbnail. I opened the new picture in my photo editor software so I could resize and crop it to the cover image that I wanted. [I found that the ereader didn't like thumbnail images that were too large. It was files sized ~400K that had issues.] Then I did a File > Save As and selected the old thumbnail. Then said yes to the prompt if it was ok to replace that file. That way I knew that the image would be named exactly like it was supposed to be.

01-20-2011, 03:06 PM	#1
sixfoot9psu Junior Member Posts: 3 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2011 Device: Sony Pocket 350	Book Cover Missing Hey, I am new to ereaders and bought the pocket 350 on sale at best buy yesterday and downloaded my first book onto it directly from sony's reader store and the book cover image does not show up on the device's homepage...it shows the title page of the book instead. Any idea how I can fix this? As I buy more books I'd like to have the book covers displayed instead of all the title pages...

01-20-2011, 04:27 PM	#3
sixfoot9psu Junior Member Posts: 3 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2011 Device: Sony Pocket 350	is there any way to edit it to add the book cover image to the file? i tried using Calibre but the epub is locked by DRM... the image appears in the sony store, so i thought it would appear on my reader as well? Last edited by sixfoot9psu; 01-20-2011 at 04:29 PM.

01-20-2011, 05:58 PM	#6
Bookworm_Girl E-reader Enthusiast Posts: 4,871 Karma: 36507503 Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Southwest, USA Device: Kindle Oasis 3; Kobo Aura One; iPad Mini 5	I've been using SeaBookGuy's suggestion after he recommended it in another thread. Works great and now my cover list looks pretty! I have been getting cover images from the goodreads website. Then I resize them to 168px width by 217px height and save to the thumbnail folder on the ereader. Each book has its own subfolder where the jpg is stored. It is important to keep the same filename. EDIT: Thought I should add that the majority of my books have DRM that I've been using this suggestion for. Last edited by Bookworm_Girl; 01-20-2011 at 06:00 PM.

01-21-2011, 08:03 PM	#10
jackie_w Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,212 Karma: 16534894 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: UK Device: Kobo: KA1, ClaraHD, Forma, Libra2, Clara2E. PocketBook: TouchHD3	FYI - Anyone reading this thread who also uses Calibre (v7.40 onward), you can get it to maintain your thumbnails automatically when you connect the Sony to Calibre, so they match the covers you keep in Calibre (rather than what may be in the book). It should work for EPUB, TXT, RTF and PDF - DRM'd or non-DRM. If you're interested you need to configure Calibre for your Sony via the relevant checkboxes in Preferences - Plugins - Device Interface - Sony - Customize. Note that to work, metadata management must be set to automatic in Preferences - Sending books to device. You probably don't want to do this if you use ADE or Sony Reader to manage Collections manually as Calibre will also maintain your Collections automatically as well. Last edited by jackie_w; 01-21-2011 at 08:14 PM.

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01-20-2011, 03:36 PM	#2
grooks Wizard Posts: 1,326 Karma: 30250 Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Fort Myers, FL Device: Pocketbook Era, Kobo Forma	Sometimes with ebooks, the publisher does not purchase the artwork rights. In these cases they will have a standard cover or in your case the title page of the book.

01-20-2011, 06:47 PM	#7
sixfoot9psu Junior Member Posts: 3 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2011 Device: Sony Pocket 350	it worked! thanks SeaBookGuy!

01-20-2011, 07:07 PM	#8
SeaBookGuy Can one read too much? Posts: 2,015 Karma: 2487799 Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Naples, FL Device: Kindle PW 3, Sony 350 and 650	More than welcome -- I've run into a situation where I've had to create a thumbnail folder "from scratch", which is kind of a pain - to do and explain!

01-21-2011, 07:16 PM	#9
WendyH Enthusiast Posts: 39 Karma: 5846 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Sydney, Australia Device: Sony Reader PRS-650	I tried this on one of the books I bought and it didn't work. I found the main thumbnail, renamed it 'backup' and removed it from the folder, put the cover I wanted in there and renamed it main_thumbnail, and it still showed the old one. I even reset the computer to see if it made a difference and it still showed the old one. When I went back into the folder to check it had two main_thumbnail files in there, the original and the one I had put there, so it is still getting that info from somewhere. I also have the ebook in the library (on my computer) as a back up, so I was wondering if that had anything to do with it not working, but I can't see where to change the thumbnail file in the library. Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong? I am a bit pedantic about my covers, and it is really annoying me that two books I paid quite a bit for have a stupid generic 'Penguin' for the cover.

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