Marketing Cover Image

Kindle eBooks must have a marketing cover image provided for use on the website detail page. This is provided separately from the eBook file.

To ensure image clarity on Kindle HDX devices, we recommend the following specifications for your marketing cover image:

• Dimensions: 2,560 pixels in height x 1,600 pixels in width
  • Note: For best quality, particularly on high-definition devices, your image should be 2500 pixels in height.
• DPI (Dots Per Inch): 300 DPI/PPI resolution minimum
• File size: 5MB or fewer
• File format: JPEG is the preferred format.
• Note: SVG files are not supported for Kindle app for iPad.
• Alignment: Your cover should be centered vertically and horizontally on the page. The image on the Kindle should be proportional to the image in the source (a full-page image should equal a full-screen image), plus or minus 15% and center aligned.
• Border: Cover art with white or very light backgrounds can seem to disappear against the white background. Try adding a narrow (3-4 pixel) border in medium gray to define the boundaries of the cover.

Important: Use RGB as the color profile when saving your cover image files. Kindle does not support CMYK.

If the marketing cover image size is smaller than the 2560 x 1600 recommendation, a reminder message is displayed at time of upload. Covers with less than 500 pixels on the shortest side are not displayed on the website.

If your cover image is smaller than the recommended size, Amazon strongly recommends that you create a new image that meets the size requirements. Do not stretch the image to meet the size requirements, because this may lower the image quality.

Cover art with white or very light backgrounds can seem to disappear against the white background. Try adding a narrow (3-4 pixel) border in medium gray to define the boundaries of the cover.

The content of the cover image must not:

• Infringe another publisher’s or artist’s copyright on the same cover.
• Mention pricing or other temporary promotional offers.

Before you publish, we recommend checking the following:

• Make sure the cover includes the Title and Author/Contributor information.
• Make sure the cover doesn’t include the spine, bar code, back cover or (optional) inside flap.
• Check the cover for typos, watermarks, or placeholder/template text.
• Make sure any text on your cover does not contradict your Amazon detail page (for example, the author name or book title is spelled differently).
• Check that the cover language matches the language in the book.
• Make sure any text is clear, and not blurred, cut-off, or fading into the background.

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Internal Content Cover Image

Kindle eBooks must have an internal cover image provided for use within the book content. Provide a large, high-resolution cover, because Amazon quality assurance will fail the book if the cover is too small.

Before you publish, we recommend checking the following:

• The internal content cover should include the Title and Author/Contributor information.
• Check that the internal content cover information matches the information provided on the Amazon detail page and marketing cover image.
• Make sure the internal content cover does not contain blurry, pixelated, cut-off, or otherwise illegible text.
• Internal content cover should not include any pricing or promotional information.
• Check for duplicates of the internal content cover.
• Make sure the internal content cover takes up at least 50% of the allocated space.
• Do not add an HTML cover page to the content in addition to the cover image. This may result in the cover appearing twice in the book or cause the book to fail conversion.

Do not add an HTML cover page to the content in addition to the cover image. This may result in the cover appearing twice in the book or cause the book to fail conversion.

Define covers in the OPF file using either of the following methods (underlined elements are mandatory):

Method 1 (preferred):

<manifest> ... <item id="cimage" media-type="image/jpeg" href="other_cover.jpg" properties="cover- image"/> ... </manifest>

This syntax is part of IDPF 3.0 standard.

Method 2:

<metadata> ... <meta name="cover" content="my-cover-image" /> ... </metadata> ... <manifest> ... <item href="MyCoverImage.jpg" id="my-cover-image" media-type="image/jpeg" /> ... </manifest>

This syntax is not part of the IDPF standard. However, it was designed with help from the IDPF and will validate in an IDPF validator.