Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

I'm updating the data for this book and stumbled over the problem that the existing cover is not the same as the one at the moment shown on Amazon. The existing cover is from the 2006 publications. The Kindle version wasn't published until 2010, when new editions with newly designed covers were published.
Now I'm not sure if I should change the cover or create an Alternative Cover edition.

Always add an alternate cover edition if the original cover was actually published.

Scott wrote: "Always add an alternate cover edition if the original cover was actually published."

It was published as a paperback/hardcover. But I can't find out if it was published as a Kindle edition. Is there some kind of database for this?

Nimue wrote: "Scott wrote: "Always add an alternate cover edition if the original cover was actually published."

It was published as a paperback/hardcover. But I can't find out if it was published as a Kindle e..."

Don't know if there is a database but it looks like someone at one time put the kindle edition here in GR

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64...

The only instance I know where it is okay to overwrite/update/replace a book cover is if you are replacing with a better image of exact same cover or if you have proof it was never published (for example a placeholder image the publisher used before unveiling the new release book cover like this one:

)

Or if a book was cancelled before being published.

I have not heard it working the other direction where you have to prove a book cover in goodreads database was really a valid book edition. If it wasn't then it should not have been in the database (and if a kindle edition with an asin number matching current kindle edition asin that's extremely unlikely that a member would makeup a bogus edition that had the correct id [if added by a member; check librarian change log; if kindle edition was added by author or librarian, really unlikely to be a fake edition. If I am reading change log correctly looks like publisher, super-librarian and Otis created the original book data in 2009, not unusual to add a book pre-launch]). With some editions labeled "reprint" not unlikely the newer kindle book cover is a "reprint" edition as well.

Prank or obviously non-book cover images get deleted if uploaded instead of bookcover.

Authors can choose which cover/edition to feature and may pick the updated bookcover from the alternate cover edition. Which essentually does update he cover without deleting older cover or altering it on member shelves.

If the author does not set a primary/default edition, goodreads uses the most popular.

Well, there are definitely some cases where the book cover never matched the ASIN (usually leftovers from when GR lost the Amazon data and you can tell for sure with editions that are in other languages) but it's not the norm or anything.

In this case it looks like the Kindle cover was updated by the publisher when the new book covers came out.

From what I could make out in library change log, I agree with you that it looks like publisher added the current cover. I'm not good at reading the change logs.

Except I think that could be a bug if it overwrote existing cover (I don't think publisher data feeds not supposed to overwrite anything, just add books and fill in missing data bits). Not completely sure how the data feed stuff works.

I don't think even a publisher data feed gets to replace an existing book cover?

(And, yes, if book had wrong (versus outdated) book cover or some image uploaded as a prank then of course that gets corrected even if means book left with no cover. Valid, existing book covers were what I was talking about).

Publisher data feeds can update or override data from themselves or from other publisher feeds.

Are we supposed to do anything about?

(That is, if a publisher data feed created one cover then changes to new cover on a more recent data feed. I know authors and librarians are not allowed to update covers because messes with editions members shelved, book data page for original, etc.—are the data feeds allowed to do cover updates or are we supposed to save new image file, undo data feed cover change, and create alternate edition when we find out?)

Depends what the change is.

If the data feed replaces older published bookcover image with an updated bookcover image?

Then yes, we usually revert those if we find them. But keep in mind that sometimes that's just a better-quality image, or replacing a no-cover-yet image with a real cover.

This one looks to me like a completely different cover; did not do anything or revert covers 'cause wasn't anything anyone did wrong and only publisher data feed...