Can I edit my way out of this Kindle Direct Publishing Bug?

[AntiqueFlaneur]

I've encountered what I think is a bug in KDP's hardcover book cover generator or their print previewer verifications software.

I created a 7x10 inch manuscript in affinity publisher that I want to publish as a hardcover book. The manuscript is 277 pages.

I used KDP's hardcover template generator to make a cover template. (See Screenshot)

Using Affinity Photo, I then built a cover around that template and uploaded it, only to be told by Print Previewer that my cover didn't fit the required dimensions.

I was confused, because I built the cover around KDP's template. So out of curiosity, I uploaded the template itself without my cover. Sure enough, it was rejected by Print Previewer as being incorrectly sized as well: (See screenshot).

Initially, I thought that If I resampled the template to fit their target dimensions this would take care of it, but no dice (see screenshot). 

Does anyone have any suggestions for how I might be able to edit my way around this problem if KDP's templates don't work?

Any suggestions?

 

 

 

 

[Callum]

Hi AntiqueFlaneur,

In the template calculator I can see the amount of pages you have input is 277 but in your second screen show showing the uploaded template the page range only goes to 139 this will cause a variance in spine width which I believe is causing the template to be rejected.

Thanks
C

[AntiqueFlaneur]

27 minutes ago, Callum said:

Hi AntiqueFlaneur,

In the template calculator I can see the amount of pages you have input is 277 but in your second screen show showing the uploaded template the page range only goes to 139 this will cause a variance in spine width which I believe is causing the template to be rejected.

Thanks
C

Interesting.  The finished Publisher manuscript file I've exported and uploaded says it 277 pages. I wonder where something is going wrong. 

[PaulEC]

In the quality check preview the spine is noticeably narrower than that shown in the template. Are you sure that you entered the correct figure when you entered the book details originally? It looks as though the page count entered was actually the number of leaves rather than the number of pages. (Each leaf, of course, being two pages.) Just a small point, but your book has 278 pages, not 277, and 139 is exactly half that number.

[AntiqueFlaneur]

1 hour ago, PaulEC said:

In the quality check preview the spine is noticeably narrower than that shown in the template. Are you sure that you entered the correct figure when you entered the book details originally? It looks as though the page count entered was actually the number of leaves rather than the number of pages. (Each leaf, of course, being two pages.) Just a small point, but your book has 278 pages, not 277, and 139 is exactly half that number.

Maybe I'm being dense here, but why 278 pages? Where do you see that last page I'm not seeing?

As for whether I'm entering the correct figure, the place to do that, as far as I can tell, is in the cover template generator. Here you can see the page count I entered. 
 

[firstdefence]

I would have thought they would reference leaves and not pages plus they would have had a note pointing that out but worth a mention anyway.

[Old Bruce]

12 minutes ago, AntiqueFlaneur said:

Maybe I'm being dense here, but why 278 pages? Where do you see that last page I'm not seeing?

You need an even number of pages. Impossible to have a one page publication, there are two sides to a sheet of paper hence two pages.

[Alfred]

8 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

You need an even number of pages. Impossible to have a one page publication, there are two sides to a sheet of paper hence two pages.

The screenshots show two-page spreads, indicating a folded publication, so there will be four pages to a sheet. Since 278 is not divisible by 4, the total number of pages will need to be 280.

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

You need an even number of pages. Impossible to have a one page publication, there are two sides to a sheet of paper hence two pages.

What if you are printing on a Möbius strip? 😃

I will see myself out now. No need to escort me to the door...

[PaulEC]

18 hours ago, Alfred said:

The screenshots show two-page spreads, indicating a folded publication, so there will be four pages to a sheet. Since 278 is not divisible by 4, the total number of pages will need to be 280.

The screenshots are of the cover templates. KDP require the interior contents to be single pages, not spreads. 😉

(The actual page count can increase slightly, as KDP often adds extra pages at the end.)

EDIT: I just realised that the OP's screenshot of his publication shows spreads. I'm so used to working with spreads but then exporting as single pages, it didn't occur to me that he may have exported as spreads! (Which would explain the errors.)

[PaulEC]

18 hours ago, AntiqueFlaneur said:

As for whether I'm entering the correct figure, the place to do that, as far as I can tell, is in the cover template generator. Here you can see the page count I entered. 

It's been a while since I uploaded a book to KDP. Thinking about it now, I'm not sure if you have to enter the number of pages manually, or if it takes it from the PDF of the contents that you upload. Did you, perhaps, upload it as spreads? (Although your screenshots shows spreads, I had assumed you exported it as single pages!) If so that would result in the wrong page count and errors regarding page size and, possibly, bleed area.

[AntiqueFlaneur]

On 4/13/2022 at 5:21 AM, PaulEC said:

It's been a while since I uploaded a book to KDP. Thinking about it now, I'm not sure if you have to enter the number of pages manually, or if it takes it from the PDF of the contents that you upload. Did you, perhaps, upload it as spreads? (Although your screenshots shows spreads, I had assumed you exported it as single pages!) If so that would result in the wrong page count and errors regarding page size and, possibly, bleed area.

Thank you. I hadn't realized that exporting pages vs spreads was a thing, and I was using spreads, throwing off the whole thing. 

But unfortunately, fixing that issue has still not fixed my problem. It still wants me to have a different sized cover than what the template is producing. 

[PaulEC]

If I put in your information for a hardback cover (assuming 278 pages – as explained above there has to be an even number of pages, as each leaf has two sides) this is the result that I get.

It's worth keeping in mind that KDP often adds 2 or 4 extra "blank" pages at the end, which include printing information and a barcode.

It might help to have a look at this info from KDP: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/GVBQ3CMEQW3W2VL6#trimsize