2026-11-09 · all guides

KDP Says Your Book "Must Have a Minimum of 75" Pages? You Chose Hardcover

What the message means

When you upload a short interior, KDP can answer with a line like this: the file only has 14 pages but must have a minimum of 75.

That number tells you which format you are in. KDP's page minimums are:

A 75-page floor only exists for hardcover. So the file isn't broken and you don't need 61 more pages. The title was set up as a hardcover, usually by clicking "Create hardcover" on the Bookshelf, and a 14-page book can't be one.

The fix: publish it as a paperback

1. Go back to your Bookshelf.
2. Start a new title with the paperback option (or use the "Create paperback" link on the same book if you already have an eBook there).
3. Enter the same details and upload the interior on the paperback Content page.

Leave the hardcover draft alone or delete it. Since KDP limits how many new titles you can create per format each week, don't create extra test titles while you sort this out. Our post on the weekly title limit explains how that count works.

You still need 24 pages

A paperback has its own minimum of 24 pages, and KDP rounds an odd page count up to the next even number. A 14-page book has to grow by at least 10 pages. For coloring, activity and picture books there are honest ways to do that without padding:

• Blank backs. Print each coloring page on the right-hand side and leave the back empty. Markers bleed through paper, so buyers of coloring books expect this, and it doubles your page count.
• A title page and a copyright page. Every book should have them.
• A "This book belongs to" page. Standard in children's books.
• A color test page for trying out pens before starting.
• A closing page that points to your other books.

Fourteen single-sided coloring pages with blank backs is already 28 pages before any front matter.

The cover has to be rebuilt too

A cover made for a hardcover will not pass as a paperback cover. The hardcover wrap is larger, with extra area that folds around the boards, and its spine is a different width. Uploading it to a paperback gets you a size error, or the generic "error processing cover" message.

Build the paperback cover from the paperback numbers:

• Width is back cover + spine + front cover, plus 0.125 inch of bleed on each outside edge.
• Spine width depends on your final page count and paper type, so settle the page count first. The free spine width calculator gives the spine and the full cover size for your page count.
• No spine text on a thin book. KDP allows text on the spine only from 79 pages up. On a 24 to 40 page book, leave the spine plain.

If the page count changes later, the spine changes with it, and the cover needs resizing again.

Check the bleed setting while you're there

Coloring and picture books often have art that runs to the edge of the page. That needs the Bleed option on the Content page and a page size 0.125 inch wider and 0.25 inch taller than the trim size. If the art stops short of the edge, or the PDF is the plain trim size, choose No Bleed. A mismatch here is the next error most short illustrated books run into, and our post on Canva and the insufficient bleed message covers the fix.

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