UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion

what do people prefer, matte of gloss covers and white or cream paper?

A back lit screen.

:D

Matt with cream paper, for me, Jim.

Patti (baconater) wrote: "A back lit screen.

:D"

so it's another vote for setting fire to things then ;-)

Matte covers show finger marks more than glossy. Cream paper is standard for fiction, I believe.

Matte covers and cream paper for me as well, though I can't say it's an especially strong preference.

Cream paper but although it's not fashionable I chose a glossy cover just because I preferred it.

Last quote I got, cream paper was cheaper.

I don't care so long as it smells nice mmmm new book

Now both Amazon and Createspace tell me my 'flash' needs upgrading to enable me to use their viewers (a 20 meg download :-( ) and Createspace told me that my screen was too small. This is the monitor on a desktop, not a chuffing phone!

Jim wrote: This is the monitor on a desktop ...

Is it equipped with a Cathode Ray Tube???

640 x 480 went out on the ark, Jim. And 1024 x 768 was on the very next boat . . . ;)

mine claims to be 1360 by 768

Boat number three ;)

I'm still running windows 7 because I refuse to run windows 10 on a rural telephone line

I like the idea of Matt. Cream paper is apparently easier to read from, but the question is how dark the cream is.

I've previously used gloss, but for my latest, I have hand-drawn cover art and went with matte. I have noticed that they seem to curl quite easily. I bought a box of 10 and half of them were already curling. Not had this problem with gloss.

I think it really depends on the design of the cover as to whether gloss or matte looks best, but I definitely prefer cream paper. Much easier on the eyes.

Katie wrote: "I think it really depends on the design of the cover as to whether gloss or matte looks best, but I definitely prefer cream paper. Much easier on the eyes."

Just to say your opinion on covers is a valuable one
Just looking at these

http://www.magicowldesign.com/pre-mad...

White paper is almost exclusively reserved for non-fiction.

My experience with gloss covers also is that they curl just as much as matte. I suspect it's something to do with how they dry them, cos some books seem not to curl at all.

I don't know if it's relevant, or even if anyone is interested, but when (many decades ago) I worked in the printing industry, curl was usually an attribute of the card before we printed it, and it was indeed due to moisture (and we considered it a defect). So either matte or gloss covers might curl. But matte inks were water based, whilst glossy inks were solvent based, so matte inks could in principle affect the curl, whilst the truly glossy inks would not.

that's interesting David
Makes sense