diff --git a/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/iterator/book.py b/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/iterator/book.py
index e9729dfe8c..bc4688e3aa 100644
--- a/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/iterator/book.py
+++ b/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/iterator/book.py
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ from calibre.ebooks.oeb.iterator.spine import (SpineItem, create_indexing_data)
from calibre.ebooks.oeb.iterator.bookmarks import BookmarksMixin
from calibre.ebooks.oeb.base import urlparse, urlunquote
-TITLEPAGE = CoverManager.SVG_TEMPLATE.decode('utf-8').replace(
+TITLEPAGE = CoverManager.SVG_TEMPLATE.replace(
'__ar__', 'none').replace('__viewbox__', '0 0 600 800'
).replace('__width__', '600').replace('__height__', '800')
diff --git a/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/transforms/cover.py b/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/transforms/cover.py
index b3c9ed8246..63b89c9b63 100644
--- a/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/transforms/cover.py
+++ b/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/transforms/cover.py
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ from polyglot.urllib import unquote
class CoverManager(object):
- SVG_TEMPLATE = textwrap.dedent('''\
+ SVG_TEMPLATE = textwrap.dedent(u'''\
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ class CoverManager(object):
''')
- NONSVG_TEMPLATE = textwrap.dedent('''\
+ NONSVG_TEMPLATE = textwrap.dedent(u'''\