2026-07-02 · all guides

KDP Cover Rejected? The 6 Most Common Causes and Fixes

Cause 1: the wrap dimensions do not match your book

The single most common rejection is a cover file whose dimensions disagree with the book KDP expects. The correct wrap width is 0.125 inches of bleed plus the back cover width plus the spine plus the front cover width plus 0.125 inches of bleed, where spine width is page count times 0.002252 inches for white paper or 0.0025 inches for cream. Height is trim height plus 0.25 inches.

The usual root cause is a stale page count: the interior was edited after the cover was built, the page count changed, and the spine allowance in the cover no longer matches. Recompute the wrap from the final uploaded interior, not from an earlier draft.

The fix is mechanical. Confirm the page count of the interior PDF you actually uploaded, redo the spine multiplication for your paper color, rebuild or resize the cover canvas to the exact wrap dimensions, and re-export.

Cause 2: spine text problems

KDP requires spine text to keep 0.0625 inches of clearance from each spine edge. If your title runs edge to edge on the spine, or the spine zone in your file was drawn for a different page count, the review fails or, worse, passes and prints with text wrapping onto the covers.

There is also a floor: on books under roughly 100 pages the spine is simply too narrow for text once you subtract the clearance from both sides. A 90-page book on white paper has a 0.2027-inch spine, leaving under 0.08 inches of usable width. Remove the spine text entirely on thin books; a blank spine passes review, a cramped one does not.

When fixing, shrink the text block rather than the clearance. Recenter the text in the recalculated spine zone and verify the buffer on both sides with your design software rulers, not by eye.

Cause 3: content in the barcode zone

KDP reserves a 2 by 1.2 inch area in the bottom-right corner of the back cover for the barcode. If you did not supply your own ISBN barcode, KDP prints one there, and any text or critical imagery you placed in that zone will be covered.

The automated check flags text in this region; what it cannot flag is a design that merely looks bad with a white barcode box stamped over it. Treat the zone as occupied from the start: keep back-cover copy, author photos, and testimonials clear of the bottom-right corner.

The fix is to restructure the back cover so the lower-right region contains only background art that can tolerate being covered. If you purchased your own ISBN and want to place your own barcode, position it inside the same zone at print resolution, and KDP will use yours instead of stamping one over the design.

Causes 4 through 6: bleed, resolution, and flattening

Missing bleed is next. Cover files must include 0.125 inches of bleed on all outer edges, with background art extending fully into it. A file built at bare trim dimensions gets rejected, and a file with white slivers at the bleed edges may print with white lines on some copies. Rebuild the canvas at full wrap size and extend the art.

Low resolution follows. Export at 300 dpi at the final physical dimensions. A cover that was designed at ebook thumbnail size and scaled up will be soft in print even if it slips through review; deriving pixel dimensions from inches at 300 dpi avoids this.

Finally, file construction issues: covers should be a single flattened PDF with fonts embedded or outlined, no transparency layers, and no crop or printer marks. Marks placed on the canvas are interpreted as artwork and shift your dimensions.

A pre-upload verification routine

Before every upload, run four checks. One: page count of the final interior, times 0.002252 or 0.0025, equals the spine width in the cover file. Two: total canvas equals 0.25 inches plus twice the trim width plus the spine, by 0.25 inches plus the trim height. Three: nothing you care about sits in the 2 by 1.2 inch barcode corner or within 0.25 inches of any trim line. Four: the export is a flattened 300 dpi PDF.

This whole routine takes under five minutes and catches essentially every mechanical rejection. If you would rather never do this math, ebookdone generates the wrap cover and interior together with the spine, bleed, and barcode zone already correct, which is the same guarantee a professional cover designer provides with a final page count in hand.

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