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KDP Quality Check: A Guide to Amazon's Review Process & Your Pre-Launch Audit
After you’ve prepared your book and clicked the “Publish” button on your KDP dashboard, your files enter a final, crucial stage: the KDP quality check. This is Amazon’s internal review process, designed to ensure that your book meets their technical and content standards before it goes live in the store.
However, the most important quality check is the one you perform before you ever upload your files. A successful author doesn’t rely on Amazon to catch their mistakes; they ensure their book is flawless from the start. This guide will explain both Amazon’s review process and the essential pre-launch quality checklist you should follow.
Key Takeaways & Summary
- Two Types of Quality Checks: The process involves two checks: Amazon’s internal review (for technical and content policy issues) and your own pre-launch audit (for professional quality).
- Amazon’s Check is Technical: KDP’s review is primarily an automated process that scans your cover and interior files for technical errors like incorrect dimensions or low-resolution images.
- Your Check is for Reader Experience: Your personal quality check is about ensuring the book is professionally edited, designed, and formatted to provide an excellent experience for the reader. This is what prevents bad reviews.
- The Goal is a Flawless Launch: The purpose of both checks is to ensure a smooth launch and a high-quality product that readers will love.
Understanding Amazon's KDP Quality Check Process
After you submit your book for publication, it will enter a “In Review” status. During this time (which can take up to 72 hours, but is often much faster for ebooks), Amazon’s system is performing a quality check.
What Amazon is looking for:
Technical File Errors: This is the most common reason for a book to be flagged or rejected. The automated check looks for:
Incorrect cover dimensions or resolution.
Mismatched interior and cover trim sizes for paperbacks.
Incorrect margins, bleed, or gutter settings on a print file.
Low-resolution images within the manuscript.
Corrupted or unreadable files.
Content Policy Violations: A human team will also review your book to ensure it complies with KDP’s content guidelines. This includes checking for copyright infringement, public domain issues, or prohibited content.
If your book fails this check, KDP will send you an email explaining the issue that you need to fix before you can resubmit.
The Author’s Pre-Launch Quality Check: Your Most Important Task
Relying on KDP to be your only quality check is a recipe for disaster. The KDP review will not check for typos, grammatical errors, or a poorly designed cover. Your own pre-launch audit is what guarantees a professional product.
Your Essential Quality Checklist:
The Final Proofread is Complete: Has a professional editor or, at the very least, a fresh set of eyes proofread the final formatted version of your manuscript? This is the last chance to catch typos. This is the final stage of our book editing services.
The Cover is Professional and Compliant: Does your cover look professional and clearly signal the book’s genre? Does it meet all of KDP’s technical size and resolution requirements?
The Interior is Flawlessly Formatted: Have you used KDP’s previewer tool to click through every single page of your ebook and paperback files? This is crucial for spotting any weird spacing, image placement errors, or chapter heading mistakes.
The Metadata is Optimized: Have you double-checked your book description for typos? Are your seven backend keywords and ten categories strategically chosen to maximize discoverability?
A professional author treats this pre-launch audit with the utmost seriousness. The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) has a code of standards that emphasizes the author’s responsibility to produce a professionally edited and designed book.
Our Amazon KDP publishing services are designed to act as your professional quality check, managing every step of this process to ensure a perfect launch.
Short FAQ
Q: How long does the KDP quality check review take?
A: For ebooks, the review process is typically completed within 24-72 hours. For paperbacks and hardcovers, it can sometimes take a bit longer, up to 5-7 days, as they perform more rigorous checks on the print files.
Q: What is the most common reason a book fails the KDP quality check?
A: The most common reasons are technical errors with the cover file, especially for paperbacks. This is usually due to an incorrect spine width, incorrect dimensions, or issues with the bleed settings.
Q: What happens if I find a typo after my book has passed the quality check and is published?
A: You can simply correct the error in your source manuscript, re-format the file, and then upload the corrected version to your KDP Bookshelf. The updated file will replace the old one, usually within a few days.
