Help CenterYou may submit a book to KDP and later you get a email from KDP rejecting your book and they want you to fix something before it will be approved. Below we try to help you with the steps to fix them.
First thing that can save you possibly from having these rejection letters, is when you click "Launch Previewer" on the left hand side of your book is an area that may show errors in your book. Underneath the wording "Quality Check". Please take a minute or two, to click through every page of your book to check it all looks good as well as paying attention to any message that appears underneath "Quality Check". In a lot of cases, it will show you, that you have issues.
Second thing that can save you time from having Cover and Interior rejection letters is reading the articles Cover Issues & Interior Issues so you clearly understand what KDP Guidelines are for a book. These articles have pictures on what to do and not to do. These are located from within the studio from the Help drop down menu and picking Troubleshooting. These articles will be mentioned below a few times as well.
The first thing to always check when it comes to Cover and Interior rejection emails, make sure you compare your choices you made when you setup your project. In Book Bolt and KDP must be the same in the "Print Options" part. Paper Type, Trim Size and Bleed or No Bleed must be exactly the same.
The second thing to keep in mind, when you have cover or interior issues, the emails will generally say something like you need to resize your cover or interior pages by 0.125" or something simular. You DO NOT resize your cover or interior. KDP assumes that based on your "Print Options" (Step 2, Paperback Content Part) you selected and with what is incorrect, it is not within their guidelines and think you chose the wrong Trim Size.
Below is examples of the emails you may get and help on how to correct.
COVER
For issues with your cover you may get emails that look simular to this:
Cover
Resize the background or image on your cover so that it extends 0.125” (3.2 mm) beyond the trim line. All covers must be sized for bleed, which means you need to add an extra 0.125" (3.2 mm) along the top, bottom, and sides of your cover file. Once you have increased the size of your cover, extend any images or backgrounds that you want to reach all the way to the edge of the page 0.125” (3.2 mm) beyond the trim line. This prevents manufacturing issues when the cover is trimmed to size.
If you get an email like this above, than you have not followed their guidelines on what to do and not to do for a cover to be accepted. Please see this article (From the Studio, click Help, then Troubleshooting, click Cover Issues article) and go over the pictures on what they expect, and what not to do. Understanding this clearly, will save you from having issues in the future. Once again you DO NOT have to resize your PDF, your margins or anything like that.
After you have read the article, and made your fixes, go back to your KDP Bookshelf, find your book, mouse over the ... and pick edit "Edit Paperback Content", scroll down to the "Book Cover" section and click "Upload your cover file" then upload it. Click "Launch Previewer" and look to see if it is okay now. On the left hand side while inside the Previewer, under "Quality Check", it will sometimes list error messages there. If you are sure everything is fine, then click "Approve". Scroll to the bottom and click "Save and Continue" then scroll to the bottom and click "Publish your Paperback Book".
INTERIOR
For issues with your interior you may get emails that look simular to this:
INTERIOR
Add 0.125" (3.2 mm) to your book's page width and 0.25" (6.4 mm) to the page height to ensure that the images in your manuscript extend beyond the edge of the page. Once you have added the size, extend any images or backgrounds that you want to reach all the way to the edge of the page 0.125” (3.2 mm) beyond the trim line. This prevents manufacturing issues when the file is trimmed to size. See examples PDF page(s) 2 - 4, 36 - 38, 78 - 80.
Where possible we give page numbers with examples. To make sure your entire book meets our guidelines, please review your entire manuscript file and fix all issues.
If you get an email like this above, than you have not followed their guidelines on what to do and not to do for a cover to be accepted. Please see this article (From the Studio, click Help, then Troubleshooting, click Cover Issues article) and go over the pictures on what they expect, and what not to do. Understanding this clearly, will save you from having issues in the future. Once again you DO NOT have to resize your PDF, your margins or anything like that.
After you have read the article, and made your fixes, go back to your KDP Bookshelf, find your book, mouse over the ... and pick edit "Edit Paperback Content", scroll down to the "Manuscript" section and click "Upload paperback manuscript" then upload it. Click "Launch Previewer" and look to see if it is okay now. On the left hand side while inside the Previewer, under "Quality Check", it will sometimes list error messages there. If you are sure everything is fine, then click "Approve". Scroll to the bottom and click "Save and Continue" then scroll to the bottom and click "Publish your Paperback Book".
CONTRIBUTOR(S)
During our review, we found the contributor(s) listed for the following book(s) may confuse our customers. Contributors are the people involved in creating your book, including authors, editors, illustrators, translators, and any others who assisted with your book’s creation.
Title of Book is Here: Subtitle of Book is here by Kids at Play Publishing (AUTHOR) (ID: PRI-AFJ444x321)
Please check our Metadata Guidelines to ensure that your contributor name(s) does not impair our readers’ ability to make good buying decisions:
https://kdp.amazon.com/help/topic/G201953870
If you want to provide information that describes your book or its content, you can include it in the product’s description, keywords section, or other appropriate metadata fields.
If you get an email like this above, 99% of the time they are referring to the Author Name you picked and it needs to be changed. KDP has become more strict with Author Names (Pen Names) more recently. The days of pretty much anything being accepted does not happen anymore. Best we can tell you need to use a name that could be a persons name (as a pen name) and can only include one word like Publishing, Puzzle, Activity, Coloring, etc. For example Joe Blow's Publishing is probably okay, Joe Blow's Coloring Books Inc. will not be okay. Joe Blow's Puzzles will be okay and yet, Joe Blow's Puzzle Books will not be okay. Nor will a name like Peter's Activity & Coloring Books.
Lately to, they have been declining books with an author name / pen name, you have already used in the past and will send the email above to you. Yes it does not seem right, but you will have to email them, and give them the ASIN of the books you already have published with that name and ask that they continue to let you use it. If they say they won't you have no choice but to come up with another Author Name / Pen Name.
Go back to your KDP Bookshelf, find your book, mouse over the ... and pick edit "Edit Paperback Details", scroll down to the "Author" section and enter a new Author Name (Pen Name). Once you have done that, scroll to the bottom and click "Save and Continue", scroll to the bottom again and click "Save and Continue" then scroll to the bottom and click "Publish your Paperback Book".
BLANK PAGES
To protect the reader experience, we allow no more than 4 consecutive blank pages at the beginning or middle of a manuscript file, and/or 10 consecutive blank pages at the end.
You may get an email from KDP saying something like the above. Generally this can happen with a sketchbook, but can with other types if 4 consecutive pages are blank, or 10 pages at the end. We have an article in the FAQ about this here. KDP mentions it on their own page here and scroll down to the "Blank Pages" part.
To correct this, you need to add something on the page, a border around the page, page numbers at the bottom, a line at the top of the page for the user to enter a title on or something.
After you fix this in the Studio, download your project again. Go back to your KDP Bookshelf, find your book, mouse over the ... and pick edit "Edit Paperback Content", scroll down to the "Manuscript" section and click "Upload paperback manuscript" then upload it. Click "Launch Previewer" and look to see if it is okay now. On the left hand side while inside the Previewer, under "Quality Check", it will sometimes list error messages there. If you are sure everything is fine, then click "Approve". Scroll to the bottom and click "Save and Continue" then scroll to the bottom and click "Publish your Paperback Book".
INTERIOR - LOW CONTENT CLASSIFICATION WAS INCORRECT
Interior
We noticed your book’s low-content classification was incorrect, so we corrected it. To publish your book, please 1) return to the “Edit Paperback/Hardcover Content” tab of your title setup, 2) update the “Print ISBN” option, and 3) re-submit your book. The low-content checkbox in the “Categories” section of title setup should be selected if your book contains little or no interior content, such as a journal, notebook or planner. Low-content books have different ISBN and distribution options, so it’s important to classify them correctly. Learn more about low-content books.
When you get a message like this, it will mean you checked the Low-Content box and should not have, or you did not check it and should have. Most times they will check or uncheck it for you. To read more about Low-Content and Medium-Content we have an article here about it.
Go back to your KDP Bookshelf, find your book, mouse over the ... and pick edit "Edit Paperback Details", scroll to the bottom and click "Save and Continue", scroll to the bottom again and click "Save and Continue" then, scroll to the bottom and click "Publish your Paperback Book".
Like we said, they will generally do the correction for you and you just need to go through the submitting part again. If they did not uncheck or check the low-content box for you, then you need to do that before saving and submitting again.
TITLE
During our review, we found that the title of the following book(s) might cause a misleading customer experience.
Dream Sleep Journal: A dream journal to record and or write your dreams & relive your dream experiences and you will never forget your dreams again. By Suzy Homemaker (AUTHOR) (ID: PRI-JN1234TR5678GV90)
Titles that can cause a misleading customer experience may include:
- Unnecessary repetitive terms or phrases within the title, subtitle or series field
- Unauthorized reference to other titles or authors
- Unauthorized reference to a trademarked term
- Reference to sales rank (e.g., "bestselling")
- Reference to advertisements or promotions (e.g., "free")
If you get the message above, in most cases they are referring to the first point they make and that you have repeated words multiple times in the Title and Sub-Title. This can be confusing to the customer and Amazon considers this a way to manipulate their search algorithm.
Go back to your KDP Bookshelf, find your book, mouse over the ... and pick edit "Edit Paperback Details", scroll down to the "Author" section and enter a new Author Name (Pen Name). Once you have done that, scroll to the bottom and click "Save and Continue", scroll to the bottom again and click "Save and Continue" then, scroll to the bottom and click "Publish your Paperback Book".
PREVENTIVE MEASURES
- Read our Cover Issues article from the Help Menu in the Studio, pick Troubleshooting and click Cover Issue's with KDP. Review the pictures of what to do and not to do to meet KDP Guidelines.
- Read our Interior Issues article from the Help Menu in the Studio, pick Troubleshooting and click Interior Issue's with KDP. Review the pictures of what to do and not to do to meet KDP Guidelines.
- When you "Launch Previewer" look at the left side of where your book is displayed under where it says "Quality Check" and see if there are things that need to be fixed before submitting your book. Click through all the pages and have a look at each of them, this only takes a minute or two to do, before clicking "Approve" and could save you waiting days to be approved after you have to re-submit your book again.