Amazon's Kindle Colorsoft finally convinced me to get an e-reader — but this one shortcoming is really getting under my skin

Kindle Colorsoft with sideloading books cover issue — (Image credit: Tom's Guide / Lucy Scotting)

I am a big-time reader. I burn through books like they're going out of fashion, often committing to my next read before finishing my last. So when the Kindle Colorsoft — the e-reader I've been eyeing — was discounted for Prime Day last week, I snapped it up, thinking there was absolutely no harm in nabbing the newly released Kindle. But to my surprise, Amazon's first color e-reader has been plagued by an ongoing issue, and potentially some of its other models, too, due to Amazon's own actions.

As per multiple Reddit threads, Kindle Colorsoft users have found that "sideloading" e-books — the process of transferring e-books onto the device via the USB port or Wi-Fi from third-party libraries — failed to work correctly, as book covers did not appear on their device. The same issue was also found in older models, including one user's 2018 Paperwhite.

Undeterred, I attempted to sideload some new books via Calibre, a well-known program in the e-reader community, and was ~~annoyed~~ surprised to find that the book covers didn't appear in my Kindle's library either. Instead of seeing gorgeous, colorful covers of my latest fantasy reads (one of my main reasons for investing in the color version), I was greeted with bare title texts and authors' names, making my e-books look like boring PDF files.

Sideloaded kindle paperwhite / colorsoft from r/ereader

Upon further digging, Calibre's forum alleges that Amazon "deliberately broke this functionality in their ColorSoft and newer devices" to discourage users from reading third-party books on their devices.

While there is no real confirmation from the e-retailer that this was true or rolled out in a recent software update, it wouldn't be the first time that Amazon has blocked users from downloading e-books and their covers.

Back in February, Amazon removed the ability to download Kindle e-books to users' computers. This meant that users couldn't use files as a backup or convert them for use on another non-Kindle e-reader; they could only download books via Wi-Fi or through Amazon's own platforms. And we can't forget the incident that involved the ironic deletion of George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-four' and 'Animal Farm'.

That said, as per an Amazon spokesperson, "Kindle supports a variety of ways for customers to easily upload and read their own personal documents using Send to Kindle" — an Amazon-branded service used to send PDFs, Word documents and EPUBs to a user's Kindle library.

The spokesperson suggested that "some third-party files may display differently depending on how they’re created or formatted, but customers can continue to enjoy reading their personal documents across their Kindle devices and apps".

No true fix for the missing covers

Unfortunately, there seems to be no right way to make the covers appear on the Kindle Colorsoft and other impacted devices. Some users were able to get covers to appear by changing the books' formats, whereas others had to manually change ASIN codes.

After trying as many fixes as I could on my new device, including Amazon's suggestion of 'Send to Kindle,' I was unable to change the way my e-book covers appear. However, somewhere along the way, my current book's cover did show up when my Kindle was in standby mode.

While it doesn't seem like a true fix is on the horizon, I'll keep you posted if a solution does arise.

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Lucy Scotting is a digital content writer for Tom’s Guide in Australia, primarily covering NBN and internet-related news. Lucy started her career writing for HR and staffing industry publications, with articles covering emerging tech, business and finance. In her spare time, Lucy can be found watching sci-fi movies, working on her dystopian fiction novel or hanging out with her dog, Fletcher.

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