InDesign CS5.5 EPUB export not showing cover image in Adobe Digital Editions

Question

I have a document that I am trying to ensure is reflecting the cover image prior to uploading to several EPUB sites like google and Barnes and Noble. I am using Adobe Digital Editions, Calibre, Firefox (EPUBReader) to do the troubleshooting on the document. Calibre shows the cover image Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) does not. Are their any known problems with ADE not reflecting the cover image that I need to be aware of before I continue working on this?
The ADE help says the following:
"Once the items are in your library, there are two ways to view the content of any bookshelf. You can view thumbnails of your items. The thumbnail is the cover page of the item (or just the first page if it doesn't have a cover page). In this view, you see the set of thumbnails and some information about each item (author, title). You can also sort the order in which the items are shown by author, title, date created, number of pages, and so forth."
Here is basic informaiton. I have a cover page in my export to EPUB but ADE will only show the first page. Again Calibre shows the cover page.
CS 5.5
The project is a book (indb) composed of multiple documents (indd)
Exporting as book as an EPUB
On general tab I am "Use existing image"
I am rasterizing the first image in Indesign via the "Object - Object export options" but I am not selecting that option when on the general tab of the Export to EPUB options. I am chosing a file from my disk. I thought that maybe the file name was too long but I changed the image to "cover.jpg" and reexported it but it still does not work.
Here are the contents of the content.opf file with all the pointers. I have updated the file as I believe you can tell with guides, creation date, etc....
It passes the SIGIL check.
The image name is Democracy in Business Dust Jacket 300dpi.jpg. It is 300 dpi and 1650 x 2550. I could also cut in the one that I did for cover.jpg but it only replaces the file name.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<package xmlns="http://www.idpf.org/2007/opf" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" unique-identifier="bookid" version="2.0">
    <metadata>
        <meta name="generator" content="Adobe InDesign"/>
        <meta name="cover" content="Democracy-20in-20Business-20Dust-20Jacket-20300dpi.jpg"/>
        <dc:title>Thomas J. Watson Sr. Essays on Leadership - Democracy in Business</dc:title>
        <dc:creator>Peter E. Greulich</dc:creator>
        <dc:subject>Thomas J. Watson</dc:subject>
        <dc:subject>Tom Watson</dc:subject>
        <dc:subject>Tom Watson Sr.</dc:subject>
        <dc:subject>Leadership</dc:subject>
        <dc:subject>Democracy</dc:subject>
        <dc:subject>Democracy in Business</dc:subject>
        <dc:description></dc:description>
        <dc:publisher>MBI Concepts Corporation</dc:publisher>
        <dc:date>2012-01-01</dc:date>
        <dc:source></dc:source>
        <dc:relation></dc:relation>
        <dc:coverage></dc:coverage>
        <dc:rights>2012 All rights reserved</dc:rights>
        <dc:language>en-US</dc:language>
        <dc:identifier id="bookid">ISBN:9780983373438</dc:identifier>
    </metadata>
    <manifest>
        <item id="ncx" href="toc.ncx" media-type="application/x-dtbncx+xml"/>
        <item id="css" href="template.css" media-type="text/css"/>
        <item id="Book-Cover" href="Book%20Cover.html" media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>
        <item id="Authors-Works" href="Authors%20Works.html" media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>
        <item id="Title-Page" href="Title%20Page.html" media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>
        <item id="Copyright-Page" href="Copyright%20Page.html" media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>
        <item id="Dedication-Page" href="Dedication%20Page.html" media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>
        <item id="Table-of-Contents" href="Table%20of%20Contents.html" media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>
        <item id="Watson-Quote" href="Watson%20Quote.html" media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>
        <item id="An-IBM-Caretakers-Perspective" href="An%20IBM%20Caretakers%20Perspective.html" media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>
        <item id="A-Historical-Perspective" href="A%20Historical%20Perspective.html" media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>
        <item id="Thomas-J-Watson-Sr" href="Thomas%20J%20Watson%20Sr.html" media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>
        <item id="About-Thomas-J-Watson-Sr" href="About%20Thomas%20J%20Watson%20Sr.html" media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>
        <item id="About-the-Author" href="About%20the%20Author.html" media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>
        <item id="Back-Cover" href="Back%20Cover.html" media-type="application/xhtml+xml"/>
        <item id="x1641.jpg" href="images/1641.jpg" media-type="image/jpeg"/>
        <item id="x3604.jpg" href="images/3604.jpg" media-type="image/jpeg"/>
        <item id="x5456.jpg" href="images/5456.jpg" media-type="image/jpeg"/>
        <item id="x5873.jpg" href="images/5873.jpg" media-type="image/jpeg"/>
        <item id="x5875.jpg" href="images/5875.jpg" media-type="image/jpeg"/>
        <item id="x6466.jpg" href="images/6466.jpg" media-type="image/jpeg"/>
        <item id="x6920.jpg" href="images/6920.jpg" media-type="image/jpeg"/>
        <item id="x7617.jpg" href="images/7617.jpg" media-type="image/jpeg"/>
        <item id="x7725.jpg" href="images/7725.jpg" media-type="image/jpeg"/>
        <item id="B-20--20Family-20Spirit-20--2035_fmt.jpeg" href="images/B%20-%20Family%20Spirit%20-%2035_fmt.jpeg" media-type="image/jpeg"/>
        <item id="C-20--20-Depression-20Indust_fmt.jpeg" href="images/C%20-%20-Depression%20Indust_fmt.jpeg" media-type="image/jpeg"/>
        <item id="Democracy-20in-20Business-20Dust-20Jacket-20300dpi.jpg" href="images/Democracy%20in%20Business%20Dust%20Jacket%20300dpi.jpg" media-type="image/jpeg"/>
        <item id="P-20--20Look-20into-20the-20futu_fmt.jpeg" href="images/P%20-%20Look%20into%20the%20futu_fmt.jpeg" media-type="image/jpeg"/>
        <item id="ZV-20--20Titles-20mean-20nothi_fmt.jpeg" href="images/ZV%20-%20Titles%20mean%20nothi_fmt.jpeg" media-type="image/jpeg"/>
        <item id="ZZZZZ-20--20IBMers-20Study-20a_fmt.jpeg" href="images/ZZZZZ%20-%20IBMers%20Study%20a_fmt.jpeg" media-type="image/jpeg"/>
        <item id="ZZZZZ-20--20Keep-20class-20spi_fmt.jpeg" href="images/ZZZZZ%20-%20Keep%20class%20spi_fmt.jpeg" media-type="image/jpeg"/>
    </manifest>
    <spine toc="ncx">
        <itemref idref="Book-Cover"/>
        <itemref idref="Authors-Works"/>
        <itemref idref="Title-Page"/>
        <itemref idref="Copyright-Page"/>
        <itemref idref="Dedication-Page"/>
        <itemref idref="Table-of-Contents"/>
        <itemref idref="Watson-Quote"/>
        <itemref idref="An-IBM-Caretakers-Perspective"/>
        <itemref idref="A-Historical-Perspective"/>
        <itemref idref="Thomas-J-Watson-Sr"/>
        <itemref idref="About-Thomas-J-Watson-Sr"/>
        <itemref idref="About-the-Author"/>
        <itemref idref="Back-Cover"/>
    </spine>
    <guide>
        <reference type="cover" title="Dust Cover" href="images/Democracy%20in%20Business%20Dust%20Jacket%20300dpi.jpg"/>
        <reference type="title-page" title="Title Page" href="Title%20Page.html"/>
        <reference type="toc" title="Table of Contents" href="Table%20of%20Contents.html"/>
        <reference type="copyright-page" title="Copyright Page" href="Copyright%20Page.html"/>
        <reference type="dedication" title="Dedication Page" href="Dedication%20Page.html"/>
        <reference type="text" title="First Page of Text" href="Watson%20Quote.html"/>
    </guide>
</package>
I have also been trying to get this cover image to display on PC for NOOK but it appears that everyone is having hits problem too. I have followed some trouble shooting guides and renamed the jpg image, Democracy in Business Dust Jacket 300dpi.jpg to cover.jpg but that doesn't seem to work either for NOOK.
Any help you can give would be appreciated. I am new to InDesign (I know you probably hate hearing that, but I have gotten so close to being done overcoming all the new user hurdles). I think this is my last one before uploading to the appropriate sites - PS. I got the cover page to show up on the Kindle but not Adobe's own product.
Thanks
Peter E. Greulich

Answer 1

ebookjunkie, I have just used InDesign to publish two very short "books" (.99 cent variety) and started this thread with the first question. Look to Bob for the expert advice. This is neophyte advice from someone moving from publishing a full book using Word to EPUB/Kindle and now using InDesign to publish to EPUB/Kindle.
First ADE is useless. I say this out of frustration of trying to use it to troubleshoot problems and it has so many problems in displaying an EPUB that you spend a lot of time troubleshooting ADE issues rather than EPUB problems. The problems are not limited to but won't display a cover page properly, text wrapping is iffy, Drop caps a problem, bringing over supported items like drop caps, all small caps, etc.... are also issues as best I can tell. Humble opinion is delete off your desktop. I use the following to troubleshoot my EPUB's/Kindle books on my Windows platform; Calibre, Barnes and Noble's Nook for PC and iPhone iTunes for EPUB (Sigil to look for errors); and for Kindle, Kindle previewer and Kindle for the PC. Even after doing this, I just today saw my book a buyer's Android "Reader" and the pictures did not display at all. So it is publish once and test everywhere! Unfortunately, you just can't test all the possible devices and iterations of readers. (I am from IBM and we couldn't do it, so how publishers are supposed to figure it out is beyond me!)
On the absolutely great news end, you will see a lot of problems about placing images on the iPad with a lot of workarounds. They apparently (Apple) have fixed this as my two publications show images nicely now on both the iPhone and iPad with the iTunes bookshelf/reader. They were "microdots" when viewed previously. I did nothing to fix it and was just not going to publish to the iPAd and just tested them a few weeks ago and they display perfectly. So Apple has fixed the problem. If it looks good on the Nook for PC, it should look good on the iPAD/iPhone now as best I can tell.
Cheers
Peter E. Greulich
Author, Speaker and Publisher
The World's Greatest Salesman and Tom Watson Sr Essays on Leadership