diff --git a/src/calibre/ebooks/conversion/preprocess.py b/src/calibre/ebooks/conversion/preprocess.py
index b72b5e345e..72032cb998 100644
--- a/src/calibre/ebooks/conversion/preprocess.py
+++ b/src/calibre/ebooks/conversion/preprocess.py
@@ -446,7 +446,7 @@ class HTMLPreProcessor(object):
# Remove page links
(re.compile(r'', re.IGNORECASE), lambda match: ''),
# Remove
tags
- (re.compile(r'', re.IGNORECASE), lambda match: '
'),
+ (re.compile(r'', re.IGNORECASE), lambda match: ''),
# Remove gray background
(re.compile(r']+>'), lambda match : ''),