A KDP Paperback File Packaging Checklist

Uploading is a packaging step, not a creative one. The decisions about promise, imprint, and cover concept should already be made. This checklist is the order in which to confirm that the files and the listing still match those decisions. It is not a replacement for Amazon’s documentation. Open the current paperback submission guidelines and the content guidelines in another window and follow them where this list is silent or where they have changed. ImprintaAI does not upload the book and does not check your file against KDP’s previewer. You do.

Work top to bottom. If a step fails, stop. Fixing a title spelling after you have built the wrap means you get to build the wrap again, which is the correct cost.

Before you open the uploader

Read your one-line promise, your style sheet, and your three name lines. Confirm you are in the right account, under the right pen name. Confirm you have the rights you need for the text and the images, including any concept art you plan to ship rather than replace. A concept you do not have rights to use is not saved by the fact that a tool drew it. When you are unsure, leave it out.

Confirm the interior is the book the cover names. Run the page-one check: title, author, series number, and any promised answers, prompts, or age band. Spot-check facts you are not willing to be wrong about. Remove outcome claims you cannot support, especially medical and financial ones.

Set trim and paper, and do not change them after the wrap is built. If you use this site’s cover calculator, treat the result as an estimate from the trim, page count, paper thickness, and 0.125 inch bleed it shows. Then use KDP’s current template as the file you actually build on. If the estimate and the template disagree, the template wins.

Interior file

The interior file should be the format the guidelines currently accept for your binding. Check these against the live help, not from memory:

• Page count meets the minimum and any even-page requirement the process uses.
• Margins, including the gutter, fit the page count.
• Bleed is present only where you intend art to trim off, and absent where you do not.
• Type is inside the safe area, large enough for the “large print” claim if you made one.
• No missing fonts, no low-resolution images you meant to replace, no placeholder “TK” or lorem text.
• Headers and page numbers do not collide with the gutter.
• The answer key, index, or final prompt page is really there.

Export a fresh PDF after the last text change. Do not upload an older export that still has the previous series number.

Cover wrap file

The wrap is one file with back, spine, and front, built on the current template. Confirm:

• The spine width matches this interior’s page count and paper, not an earlier draft.
• Title, author, and series number match the interior title page character for character.
• Type sits in the safe area, not in the bleed, and not under the barcode zone.
• The barcode, if you place one, is a real code from the ISBN you are using. The barcode tool on this site can draw a code from an ISBN you enter. It does not buy or assign an ISBN.
• The front still passes the thumbnail test after you flattened the final type.
• You did not stretch the front concept across the whole wrap.
• Colors are the colors your style sheet allows. A last-minute filter is a series break.

Preview the wrap in KDP’s previewer if it is offered. Look at the spine joint. Look at the back-cover text for cut-off lines. A previewer warning you do not understand is a reason to pause, not a reason to click through.

Listing metadata

Paste the description from the approved package, not from an older brainstorm. The title, subtitle, and series fields should match the decision in title, cover, and description. Categories should be true shelves. Read the current categories help while you select them. Keywords should describe this book without awards, ranks, or other people’s author names.

Enter the publisher and author exactly as the name card says. Set the language. Set the price you intend, and if you want to understand royalty options, read KDP’s current eBook and print royalty documentation rather than a remembered percentage. This checklist does not calculate a royalty. The calculator on this site is an estimator. Confirm fees and eligibility in the account before you rely on a number.

If the book uses AI-assisted text or images, read the AI section of the current content guidelines and complete whatever disclosure that page asks for. Do not improvise a policy from a blog. Do not skip the section because the cover “looks handmade.”

Proof, then go live

Order a proof when you can. Read it as an object: trim, color shift, spine text direction, a title that looked fine on screen and weak on paper. Mark fixes on the proof, then fix the source files, then export again. Do not fix only the proof and leave the source old. The next volume will copy the source.

When you publish, save the final interior PDF, the wrap, the style sheet, and a note of the template date you used. That bundle is the imprint’s memory. Series branding depends on it. A catalog you cannot rebuild is not a pressmark. It is a pile of uploads.

If a step on this list felt like new creative work, you were not ready to upload. Go back to the brief. The checklist is supposed to feel dull. Dull means the promise, the files, and the names already agree.