Thread: Show cover with .mobi OTA
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Old 07-22-2019, 01:10 PM   #5
shalym
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Quote:
Originally Posted by odamizu View Post
The last time I delved into this (a few years ago), the answer was no. This is roughly how it worked then (don't know if there have been any changes since):

E-ink Kindles get covers by downloading the image directly from Amazon's server based on the ASIN number embedded in the ebook.

If you use Calibre to sideload via USB, Calibre will copy the image to the Kindle for you.

If you include the ASIN in the opf (<dc:identifier>urn:mobi-asin:B000000000</dc:identifier> or <dc:identifier>urn:amazon:B000000000</dc:identifier> ), you can use Calibre's Quality Check plugin to embed the ASIN ("Fix ASIN for Kindle Fire" command). You can also use the KindleGen plugin for Sigil to do this by checking the "Add Fake ASIN" box. Make sure you have WiFi on when you sideload the book and your Kindle will download the cover based on the embedded ASIN.

The problem with Send-to-Kindle is that when you send an ebook via Send-to-Kindle, Amazon creates a new ASIN for it and overwrites whatever ASIN you may have embedded yourself. As a result, eink Kindles are not able to download the cover and you get a generic cover. (iOS and Android apps seem to use the cover image inside the ebook so don't have this problem.)

So for eink Kindles, unfortunately, you have to choose between Whispersync and covers.
If I have a book that is emailed to Amazon as a regular .mobi, I get a cover and it also syncs. If it is sent as a dual mobi and comes down as a kf8 (azw3) file, I have no cover. Whichever format it gets uploaded as, sync across devices works. Note that my ebooks are created with Calibre converting from epub, and emailed using Calibre.

Shari
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