FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Last updated: 6 January 2004 | Report a dead link
Previous page: Wallpapers | Next page: Other Windows


...about Secret Windows: The Stephen King Cover Gallery
Why, when, how?!!
I got online for the first time in the spring of 1997. Pretty fast I began to explore the net for Stephen King sites. I found some and was finally able to fulfil one of my "childhood" dreams - to see what the Stephen King books looked like in other countries.

After a while I started collecting images of Stephen King covers and thought that once I learned some HTML-basics I would do a homepage of my own.

Slowly my collection grew and I worked hard with the site during the late summer of 1997, and in October the first version of the site was up. I think the first version had something like 400 covers and the gallery is expanding all the time!
You have just changed design, name and location, how come? And what did the earlier versions look like?


Here's the old (first) logo, which might give you an idea of how the first design looked. The icons were designed in a simular way.



And this is a screenshot of the second last design of The Stephen King Cover Gallery.
Early 2002 I relocated the whole webpage and changed the name at the same time. The change of name was a hard one. The Stephen King Cover Gallery is now an established site in the whole world of Stephen King sites, so to part from it completely was out of the question. I browsed my bookshelf for hints how to freshen up the name and I kind of became attracted to the phrase "Secret Windows" (which happens to be a somewhat hard to get collection of Kings non-fiction work) and I decided that it should be the new name of my site. Secret Windows - The Stephen King Cover Gallery was born.

A new design came kind of natural with the new name and relocation, and frankly I was bored with the old one. I hardly updated the site during 2001 because I focused on my other webprojects (and work, which also is to design webpages), and that was yet another reason to change and develope the design a bit more.

The Stephen King Cover Gallery has lived through several designs. The first, original design was a really graphic design (see the image to the right). It had frames, just like now, but the frames were in columns, not rows like now. The smaller left column had clickable icons of all the titles. They were nice, but since they were images it took a lot of time to load all the icons, before you could start browsing, AND you had to scroll vertically to see all the titles, which annoyed me a lot. So after some consideration, I decided to redesign the whole interface, adding a nicer looking text design, and so forth.

However, I got a bit tired of that design too, so I decided it was time to freshen up the gallery once again. The change that time wasn't that big (as between version 1 and 2) but it was a bit different.

The next redesign happened around the Millennium and I would descripe it as the "brown version". The design was a bit cleaner with thin brown lines and overall the color scheme was a bit more mellow and not so colorful.
I know a book that you don't have. It's the [title] with the [description] cover.
Great - I want it! Here's how to contribute with images:

First - please get in touch with me so I know who you are and why you're emailing me. Second - send me the stuff! Generally speaking, I prefere JPG images with a height of, at least, 200 pixels in 72 dpi. Please don't forget to tell me which book it is (the original American title), which country it representing and if possible the publisher of the book.

Another way to contribute is to upload the covers you want to send to a server somewhere and send me the URL and I will download the stuff ASAP. Contributions are VERY welcome!
You got it all wrong, it's not THAT book, it's THIS book!/A cover is not loading/I have a better looking version...
With all these covers to keep in mind, there ought to be some mistakes, like an American cover that actually is British, and vice versa. I would really like to keep this site as precise as possible, so if you see any mistakes - let me know! I'm still looking for a lot of publishers so keep me informed if you see some mistakes or know the publisher to the books that for me is unknown.

Use the "report a dead link"-link on the pages if there is a cover not loading, or an URL that points the wrong way.

If you think that one of my covers is in a bad shape and you can make a new scan for me - feel free to do so! I want to have only high quality images on my site. Read the instructions of how to contribute just above this text.
I want to click on the images and see them in a larger size!
I know "my" covers have a thumbnail look, but I sorry to say that larger versions will not be available. First of all - to have multiple versions of each and every cover is virtually impossible. The Castle Rock-server would die! :) Second - most of the covers I have I only have in small versions and most of them are really in low quality so... It's not going to happen.

I might supply you with larger scans of the first US editions in the future, but that's basically it...
Can I take some images from your site and use on my own webpage?
Yes you can, because I don't own any of the images (except maybe for logos and such)... I've picked most of them from other websites so I have no problem with that. Just don't take the whole design as someone did once. That wasn't fun at all, especially with all the time I've spent on this site. But please link to my site and/or use my banner... thanks!
Can I link your site on my site?
Of course you can! I need all the promotion I can get! Here's the link: http://www.secretwindows.tk and here's a banner if you want to use one:

My banner - woohoo!
...about Stephen King
"I love all your books. You are my favorite author..."
I AM NOT STEPHEN KING! If I was I wouldn't spend my time on creating a website like this - I would write books! I am Anders Jakobson - see the next section for more info about me!
Do you know Stephen King's e-mail?
No, I don't. If I had his e-mail address I wouldn't distribute it, because I can't bear the thought of disturbing the great man with e-mails.

Just think of it - you are one of the most popular authors in the world, with millions of fans. You go public with your e-mail address and you will probably get thousands of mails in just one day, all probably demanding an answer. I don't think so... We all want the great man to write books, not e-mails!

Stephen King
49 Florida Ave.
Bangor, ME 04401-3005
USA
You can contact him (or at least the office) via the official Stephen King site, but I doubt that these messages actually will reach the King himself.

However, you can send snailmails to Stephen King, but I can't assure an answer. You can write and ask to be added to the signing list (a two books in a lifetime deal, with a 1,5 - 2 years waiting list). The address is to right.
Could you send me information about all his books and films?
No, but I can recommend you other sites that have that kind of information. Start with the official site. If you want the latest news, rumours or complete listings of his work, books, movies, shortstories, poems, plays - whatever, check out Lilja's Library. If you want really good reviews, info and news - check out Kev's Charnel House. If it's something else you want follow the links on my Link page.
Can you tell me what a [insert any state] of [insert any Kingtitle] is worth?
Sorry, I don't keep track of the stuff, unless there's something I'd like to buy. I suggest you contact Betts, Bad Moon or Camelot or another bookseller specializing in Stephen King. They are the experts - they should know! Besides, they are really nice and easy to deal with.
How can I tell if my book is a first edition or not?
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2   or   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

means that it's a first edition - you always go by the lowest figure. In other words

4 6 8 2 3 1 7 5

is a fourth edition.
There are several ways to figure out the edition of your book. Although it may differ from title to title, the most common thing is to look at the copyright page (CP) and look for the text "First edition", or a couple of strange figures. See the explanation of the figures to the right.

But some of course neither has the words "First edition" nor the figures. In that case it can be a little bit trickier to find out what edition it is. There's a good guide to this located on the SKEMERs site by mastermind Rich, so check it out.

Bookclub editions can be identified in several ways as well. Sometimes is says "Bookclub edition" somewhere on the book, sometimes the dust jacket doesn't have a price and sometimes there's a little dot on the backside of the book.
Where can I find a good Stephen King faq?
Try the absk faq at Jon Skeet's highly recommended page.
...about me
Who are you?
I'm Anders Jakobson from Sweden. I was born July 17th 1973. I started reading Stephen King around 1986 and the first book I read was Cujo and I was pretty hooked after that. I've always been interested in art and design and the last couple of years I've devoted myself to the Internet, learning how to be a webdesigner by myself and learning how to be a webdeveloper by taking courses, and during the summer of 1999 I was hired by a large firm in my town to design webpages. I'm into music aswell and I play in a couple of bands. One of those is Nasum.
Do you own all these books?
NO! Of course I don't! I own some 100+ Stephen King books, mostly hardcovers, all Swedish books, almost all American hardcovers, a few Limited Editions (s/l The Talisman, gift Insomnia, gift Desperation, gift The Dark Tower I-IV, a few ARC's (Bag of Bones, On Writing (personally signed by Stephen King) and Hearts in Atlantis) and some odd paperbacks. I also have some reference books and stuff - my collection is pretty OK!