Disclosure: Written by Oren Rot (a pen name). I am paid a small fee for placing this article by the maker of BookTemplatesPro, which I mention near the end. Every KDP rule below comes from Amazon's own help pages, linked in the text. The LaTeX snippets are ones I compiled and checked before posting.
Amazon KDP reviews every print file twice. First an automated check: when you upload, the Print Previewer scans the file and blocks submission until its errors are fixed. Then, after you submit, a manual review can still come back with more. Amazon's own list of what gets flagged is on its help page "Fix Paperback and Hardcover Formatting Issues" (https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201834260).
If you typeset with LaTeX you are already ahead of most Word users, because your page geometry is explicit instead of hidden in dialog boxes. But four of the checks still catch LaTeX users. Here is each one, with the setting that clears it.
1. Bleed: the most common failure
KDP's Jumpstart guide says it directly: "One of the most common reasons manuscripts don't pass quality review is failure to account for bleed" (https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G202187840).
Bleed applies when anything on the page, an image, a background color, a graphic, is meant to reach the trimmed edge. Two rules follow. The file must be a PDF. And the page size must grow: add 0.125 in (3.2 mm) to the width and 0.25 in (6.4 mm) to the height, so a 6 x 9 in book with bleed is typeset on a 6.125 x 9.25 in page. Images that bleed must extend 0.125 in past the trim line (https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/GVBQ3CMEQW3W2VL6).
In LaTeX the page size is one line in the preamble:
\usepackage[
paperwidth=6.125in, paperheight=9.25in, % 6x9 trim + bleed
inner=0.75in, outer=0.5in,
top=0.625in, bottom=0.625in
]{geometry}
And a full-page image that actually reaches the edge, for a part-opener or a photo plate:
\thispagestyle{empty}
\begin{tikzpicture}[remember picture, overlay]
\node at (current page.center)
{\includegraphics[width=\paperwidth, height=\paperheight]{art.pdf}};
\end{tikzpicture}
Without bleed, leave images inside the margins and keep the paper size at exactly the trim size. Mixing the two, a 6 x 9 page with an image that touches the edge, is the classic rejection.
2. Fonts must be fully embedded
KDP requires all fonts to be fully embedded in interior and cover files. pdfLaTeX and LuaLaTeX embed fonts by default, so the usual LaTeX failure is not the text, it is a figure: a PDF diagram exported from another tool with fonts that were never embedded. One bad figure fails the whole file.
Check before you upload:
pdffonts interior.pdf
Every row needs "yes" in the emb column. If a figure fails, regenerate it or repair the final file with Ghostscript:
gs -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite \
-dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress -sOutputFile=fixed.pdf interior.pdf
3. Margins, and the italic trap
KDP wants mirror margins with an inside gutter that grows with page count, and outside margins of at least 0.25 in without bleed, 0.375 in with. I wrote up the full gutter table with a working preamble in an earlier article (https://dev.to/orenrot24/setting-kdp-paperback-margins-in-latex-the-gutter-table-a-working-preamble-and-a-check-that-1gkl), so here is only the part that surprises people: italic text can stick out past its text box. Amazon's help page shows Print Previewer flagging a margin error where the only thing outside the margin is the overhang of italic characters. Nothing looks wrong in the PDF, and the file is rejected anyway.
The fix costs nothing: set margins slightly above KDP's minimums instead of exactly on them. The extra sixteenth of an inch absorbs the overhang.
4. Images under 300 DPI
KDP recommends at least 300 DPI for images. In LaTeX the rule reduces to: do not upscale. Include each image at its natural size, because enlarging it in the document lowers its effective resolution. A 1500 px wide photo placed 5 inches wide prints at exactly 300 DPI.
To see what the printed file will actually use:
pdfimages -list interior.pdf
The listing shows each image's real resolution after placement.
Where templates come in (the sponsored part)
Everything above is one long evening of geometry options and preflight checks if you start from a blank file. BookTemplatesPro, whose maker is paying for this placement, sells LaTeX book templates where the trim size, bleed, margins and front matter are already configured to what KDP expects, paired with prompts that typeset a raw manuscript into the layout. Digital templates start at $29, and the site has complete sample PDFs you can open and measure before buying anything: https://booktemplatespro.com. A template whose geometry block is right on page one means most of the previewer errors above never happen.
Ten seconds before you upload
-
pdffonts: every font embedded, every row "yes". -
pdfimages -list: nothing below 300 DPI at placed size. - Paper size includes the bleed allowance if any element touches an edge; exact trim size if none does.
- Margins at or above KDP's minimums for the final page count, with a little slack for italics.
- PDF, not DOCX. With bleed it is mandatory, and for everything else it removes a whole class of surprises.
