One of the things I did with my RST file was to include a cover image, like this:

.. meta::
    :PG.Id: 9999
    :PG.Title: A Study of the Bhagavata Purana
    :PG.Rights: Public Domain
    :PG.Producer: Bhakta Jim
    :PG.Credits: This file was produced from page images at the Internet Archive.
    :DC.Creator: Purnendu Narayana Sinha
    :DC.Title:  A Study of the Bhagavata Purana or Esoteric Hinduism
    :DC.Language: en
    :DC.Created: 1901
    :coverpage: images/bhagap_cover.png

There really is a bhagap_cover.png file in my images directory.  However, the file does not get included in the EPUB archive.  I do not refer to this file anywhere in the HTML.  I definitely include it in the zip file I upload.

James Simmons