KDP wants an ebook cover as a JPEG or TIFF, ideally 2,560 pixels tall by 1,600 wide, and a paperback cover as one PDF with the back, spine and front together. The paperback has no single size, because its width depends on your page count and your paper; there’s a formula, and I’ll show the arithmetic so you can check me.
If KDP just bounced your file, or you need the book cover dimensions before you design anything, start here and check the list near the end first.
Every number below comes from KDP’s own help pages, ebook covers and paperback covers, as they read on October 31, 2026. KDP can change them, so treat this as a map and not the final word.
KDP ebook cover size
- Ideal: 2,560 pixels tall by 1,600 pixels wide (a height-to-width ratio of 1.6:1)
- At least 2,500 pixels tall for the best quality on HD screens
- Minimum 1,000 tall by 625 wide; maximum 10,000 pixels on either side
- JPEG or TIFF, RGB color, under 50 MB
The ratio is just height divided by width (2,560 / 1,600 = 1.6), and the minimum has the same shape (1,000 / 625 = 1.6), so if you build smaller, keep the shape. Light or white covers can disappear on Amazon’s white pages, so KDP suggests a narrow medium gray border, 3 to 4 pixels. You also need the rights to everything on the cover. How to actually design one is in ebook cover design.
KDP paperback cover size
A paperback cover is one single PDF: back cover, spine and front cover as one image. Use images of at least 300 DPI, flatten any transparencies, and keep the file to 40 MB or less (that’s KDP’s recommendation).
Then add bleed: 0.125″ (3.2 mm) on the top, bottom and outside edges. Bleed is the extra picture that gets trimmed away, which is what stops a white edge showing. The two formulas:
- Cover width = bleed + back cover width + spine width + front cover width + bleed
- Cover height = bleed + trim height + bleed
The back and front widths are just your trim width, so on a 6×9 book each one is 6 inches and the trim height is 9. Keep all text at least 0.125″ (3.2 mm) inside the trim lines.
The ebook cover is a separate file from this wrap; it’s only the front, at the pixel sizes above.
KDP spine width
Spine width is your page count times a number that depends on the paper:
- White paper, black ink: 0.002252″ per page
- Cream paper: 0.0025″ per page
- Premium color: 0.002347″ per page
- Standard color: 0.002252″ per page
So the spine is NOT a fixed number. Change the page count or the paper and it moves.
Two rules for spine text: only put text on the spine if the book has at least 79 pages, and leave 0.0625″ (1.6 mm) between the text and each edge of the spine.
Worked example: a 6×9 paperback with 300 pages
Say you have a 6×9 book that comes to 300 pages. First, on white paper:
- Spine: 300 x 0.002252 = 0.6756″, call it 0.676″
- Full cover width: 0.125 + 6 + 0.676 + 6 + 0.125 = 12.926″
- Full cover height: 0.125 + 9 + 0.125 = 9.25″
Now the same book on cream paper:
- Spine: 300 x 0.0025 = 0.75″
- Full cover width: 0.125 + 6 + 0.75 + 6 + 0.125 = 13.0″
- Height stays 9.25″
Same book, same page count, and the cover is 0.074″ wider (13.0 minus 12.926) just because of the paper. Build your file for white, pick cream in KDP, and the spine in your file is the wrong width.
If you’re setting a canvas in pixels, multiply the inches by 300 (for 300 DPI). The white-paper cover is 12.926 x 300 = 3,877.8, so about 3,878 pixels wide, by 9.25 x 300 = 2,775 pixels tall.
Put your title on a cover. Then make it your own.
Six free Word cover templates and seven short video lessons on genre, images and fonts, so you’re not starting from a blank page.
KDP cover template and KDP cover calculator
You don’t have to do the math by hand. KDP has its own cover calculator and template generator (search for ‘KDP cover calculator’): you give it your trim size, page count and paper, and it downloads a template for that exact book. That’s your KDP paperback cover template, so build on it.
Check KDP’s calculator for your exact book, and run it again whenever the page count or the paper changes. A template made for 300 pages on white paper is wrong for 320 pages, and it’s wrong for the same 300 pages on cream. Still learn the formula, mostly so you can tell when a number looks off.
Work in this order: settle your trim size, paper and final page count first; get the template; design on top of it; then check the text margins, the 300 DPI, the transparencies and the spine text before you export the one PDF. Doing it backwards (designing first, calculating later) is how you end up rebuilding the spine.
Where the barcode goes
If you don’t add a barcode, KDP places one on the back cover for you, in the lower right area (lower left for right-to-left books).
Leave that spot clear: no text, nothing important in the artwork. What does belong on the rest of the back cover is covered in back cover design.
Common reasons KDP rejects a cover
- Text closer than 0.125″ to the trim line
- Wrong spine width, because the page count or the paper changed after you built the file
- Images under 300 DPI
- Transparency that wasn’t flattened
- Spine text on a book with fewer than 79 pages
- Spine text closer than 0.0625″ to the edges of the spine
Most of these are quick fixes: move the text in, recalculate the spine with the final page count and paper, flatten the file. Low resolution is the painful one, because the fix is a better source image.
I used to complain about this back when it was CreateSpace (the print side of what became KDP). I thought its cover previewer was overly sensitive, and I especially hated its spine margins: an elegant, curly font almost never fit, so you had to make the title tiny or change the font (or cut the text off, which is ugly). KDP’s margin today is 0.0625″ on each side; on the 0.676″ spine from the example that leaves 0.551″ for your lettering (0.676 – 0.0625 – 0.0625). Pick the spine font for fit, not for looks.
Rather have a designer do it?
My design studio, Creativindie Covers, makes custom covers: $349 for an ebook front cover, $549 for the full print wrap with spine, back and barcode, $849 with formatting and a launch kit. Real cover samples within 10 days.
100% money-back guarantee if you don’t love it.
How to make the full wrap yourself
You can build a wrap in Word. I wrote years ago that a full print cover is a little tricky, but you can make one that looks pretty good if you get familiar with Word’s features and use quality fonts and images.
My seven free video lessons include one on the full print cover (you can sign up here), and the DIY Book Design & Formatting Bundle has 150 editable Word cover templates; it’s $39 through this link (list price is $197).
The free online cover editor has a custom size tab, but I wrote that making a full print cover in it is ‘not exactly easy or straightforward’ (a polite way to describe my own tool): you work out the spine from your page count, convert the whole cover to pixels and set the canvas yourself. An ebook cover is only the front image, which is a much smaller job.
Your next cover doesn’t have to start with a blank page.
My DIY Book Design bundle has 150 editable Word cover templates (80 fiction, 70 nonfiction), the formatting downloads and five courses. It’s $197; through this link it’s $39. The cheapest time to fix a cover is before you pay to promote the book.
If it isn’t useful, email support within 30 days for a full refund.
