diff --git a/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/iterator.py b/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/iterator.py
index 4fc7b7ea1b..f4eb2c5a29 100644
--- a/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/iterator.py
+++ b/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/iterator.py
@@ -149,7 +149,7 @@ class EbookIterator(object):
         if self.ebook_ext in ('lit', 'mobi', 'prc', 'opf') and cover:
             cfile = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(self.spine[0]),
                     'calibre_iterator_cover.html')
-            open(cfile, 'wb').write(TITLEPAGE%cover.encode('utf-8'))
+            open(cfile, 'wb').write(TITLEPAGE%cover)
             self.spine[0:0] = [SpineItem(cfile)]
             self.delete_on_exit.append(cfile)