Frequently Asked Questions

I design and format books for print and print-on-demand — interiors, primarily. I work with authors formatting their own books for the first time, publishers with ongoing projects, and authors who have been around long enough to know what they want. I also do cover design, quoted separately.

Yes. Most of my clients are. First-time authors sometimes need more explanation along the way, which is fine — it's part of the work. What matters is the book, not the experience level.

Every project starts with a file review and a quote. From there: design, formatting, review rounds with you at each stage, revisions, and final delivery. The number of rounds depends on the project. It takes as long as it takes.

No. Book design and formatting is collaborative. You'll be involved at every stage — reviewing design decisions, approving pages, and making corrections. The best results come from engagement, not delegation.

Send me a description of the project — what the book is, roughly how long, whether it has images, and what you need. I'll ask for the files and get back to you.

I don't quote by the word or by the page. I review the files and base a quote on what the book actually requires. A clean, well-edited manuscript with straightforward structure is a very different project from one with complex image placement or problems that only become visible once the pages are set.

For print interiors, I work in Affinity Publisher. Final delivery is a print-ready PDF. For manuscripts, I accept Word files (.doc or .docx). If you're working in something else, ask. When eBook production is part of the project, I use InDesign.

Sometimes. It depends on what exists and what state it's in. Send me the files and I'll tell you honestly whether it's faster to work from what's there or start fresh.

Yes. I have 18 free resources covering typography, image preparation, margins, bleeds, color, and more — no sign-up, no strings. Most of them are aimed specifically at authors doing their own formatting. If you have questions after reading them, I'm available for paid consultation.

Everything here — the resources, the glossary, the FAQs — is free. If it's saved you time or money, a donation helps keep it that way.

Payment is due when the print-ready files are complete. I bill via PayPal. Until payment is confirmed, files are delivered as watermarked proofs with security enabled. The clean files follow immediately after payment. There's no upfront deposit. The watermark is the protection.

Every project begins with a limited mechanical copy check before formatting starts. The purpose is practical: to catch problems that will complicate typesetting — spelling errors, punctuation omissions that affect meaning, and mechanical consistency in the narrative voice. It doesn't impose a house style, normalize authorial quirks, or rewrite for clarity. All suggestions come back to you for review. Nothing is changed without your acceptance. It's a floor, not a ceiling.

From there: design, formatting, and a review cycle with you at each stage. Once pages are set, issues that were invisible in a word-processing file often become apparent on the page. Corrections you request at that stage are author's alterations (AAs); errors I introduced are printer's errors (PEs). You don't pay for PEs.

Final delivery includes two print-ready PDFs: one with editable text, which is standard, and one with outlined text, which provides protection against font-related issues sometimes encountered in print-on-demand systems.

After formatting is complete, any changes you request to the manuscript are author's alterations (AAs). These are billed at $80 per hour, tracked to the minute by task. Changes I introduced during formatting — spacing problems, mechanical errors, typos — are printer's errors (PEs) and are not billed. In practice, AAs can double or triple the time required to finish a book. The full editorial pass before formatting begins is specifically designed to minimize them.

A full editorial pass is included in every project before formatting begins. This is not a courtesy check. It covers spelling, grammar, punctuation, mechanical consistency, pattern and repetition review, continuity checking, and a skeptical editorial read — the kind of pass that looks for what mechanical correction misses: logical gaps, unexamined assumptions, staging problems that a copy editor isn't looking for.

Before formatting starts, you receive a corrections package: itemized lists of what was changed and what was flagged, organized by category. You accept or reject each item. Nothing is changed without your approval, and formatting does not begin until you've sent back an accepted version. If your manuscript comes back clean, you'll hear that.

For longer or more complex fiction, a dedicated continuity audit is available as a separate add-on. Contact me to discuss scope and pricing.

No.

Yes. Upload assistance is available as a separate flat-fee service. I schedule the upload with KDP notification, and you verify the over-the-counter proof before publishing. Contact me for details.

Yes. Your work is protected as soon as it exists in a tangible form — a Word file, handwritten pages, a recording. Registration with the Copyright Office is separate and not required, but it provides additional legal protection if you ever need to enforce your rights.

No. They print and distribute what you upload. Copyright is entirely your responsibility.

No. Your character can drive a Ford, eat a Big Mac, and drink Coke.

Your copyright covers what you created. Art you didn't create isn't covered by your copyright. If you hired someone to create something specifically for your book, that's generally considered work for hire and you hold the rights — but a written agreement removes any ambiguity.

An ISBN is a unique 13-digit identifier assigned to a specific edition of a book. It's used for sales, distribution, and cataloging. A barcode is the machine-readable version of that number — the printed lines on the back cover. Related, but not the same thing. Each format and edition of your book needs its own ISBN — print and eBook are different ISBNs.

In the U.S., ISBNs are sold by Bowker at myidentifiers.com. KDP and Ingram Spark both offer free ISBNs, but those ISBNs are tied to the platform — they identify the platform as the publisher of record, not you. If that matters to you, buy your own.

Yes. Other than your actual account and tax information, you can publish under a pseudonym throughout the process.

KDP distributes primarily through Amazon, with some expanded distribution to other retailers. Ingram Spark has broader distribution reach and is often the better choice for authors targeting bookstores and libraries. The two aren't mutually exclusive — some authors use both — but that decision has implications for ISBNs and exclusivity that are worth understanding before you commit.

Yes, with caveats. KDP's expanded distribution and Ingram Spark overlap in some channels, which can cause problems. The short version: if you're using both, don't enroll in KDP expanded distribution. Use KDP for Amazon and Ingram Spark for everything else.

Many authors use KDP for paperback and eBook editions and Ingram Spark for hardcover editions — which makes sense, because the two platforms produce very different hardcover products. KDP hardcovers are case laminate: the art is printed directly on the cover, no dust jacket. Ingram Spark hardcovers have cloth-covered boards with an optional dust jacket.

Amazon migrated CreateSpace accounts to KDP in 2018–2019. If you published through CreateSpace, those titles are now on KDP.

Be careful. KDP's terms hold you responsible for everything that happens under your account, whether you authorized it or not. A contractor or assistant can work in your account, but the account — and its consequences — remain yours.

Yes — strongly. Order two or three copies before you hit Publish. Keep at least one permanently. If a quality problem surfaces months later, that reference copy is your evidence when making a complaint to KDP. Think of it as a contract proof: KDP's commitment to print what you approved, and your record that you approved it.

Printed proofs generally arrive in under a week. Author copies and large-quantity orders can take several weeks. Retail order fulfillment is quick. If you're ordering a large quantity for a specific event, give yourself as much lead time as possible.

KDP and Ingram Spark both offer standard trim sizes, and both can print any custom size between 4×6 and 8.5×11.69 inches. The most common size for fiction is 6×9. For nonfiction, 6×9 and 7×10 are both widely used. KDP's largest square size is 8.5×8.5; landscape books cannot be wider than 8.5 inches. Ingram Spark offers one exception: an 11×8.5 landscape size.

KDP and Ingram Spark offer black and white printing (standard for most books) and color printing (significantly more expensive). With print-on-demand, one color image makes the entire interior a color book, priced accordingly. Covers are always treated as full color regardless of whether the interior is color or black and white.

Printing costs depend on trim size, page count, paper, and color. KDP and Ingram Spark both publish their per-page rates. I'm happy to estimate costs for a specific project during the quoting process.

When a book fails an automated or manual review — for content, file problems, or guideline violations — KDP stops the process until the issue is resolved. They'll usually tell you what triggered it, though the explanation isn't always precise. The most common technical causes are file problems, metadata issues, and — increasingly — unsupported fonts. In my experience, client books have only been blocked for reasons the client controlled — content, metadata, or file preparation.

As of January 19, 2026, KDP blocks uploads that contain fonts it doesn't support. KDP won't tell you which fonts are unsupported beyond a short recommended list: Centaur, Garamond, Hightower Text, Palatino Linotype, Amazon Endure, Constantia, and Cambria. Any Lucida font is known to be blocked. Others may be as well — KDP doesn't publish a complete list.

There are two fixes: change the fonts (which may require reformatting) or outline the text in the PDF, converting it from live type to outlines. Outlining also addresses some other platform glitches — including a known issue where running heads print in a foreign language in a fraction of copies.

I now deliver two print-ready PDFs with every project: one with live, editable text, and one with outlined text. If the live-text version fails to upload, the outlined version is your backup.

Standard typographic characters — curly quotes, em dashes, en dashes, ellipsis, accented letters — work reliably on Kindle and other eBook platforms. Decorative symbols and ornaments are font-dependent: they may display correctly on current devices but show as a blank box on older ones. Legacy symbol fonts (Wingdings, Webdings) do not work in eBooks under any circumstances. The most common cause of corrupted characters — garbled apostrophes and dashes — is a missing encoding declaration in the EPUB file, not a character support problem.

The question isn't really about resolution as a number — it's about whether an image has enough pixels to print at the size you need. An image that looks perfectly sharp at two inches wide may fall apart at six inches.

For practical purposes: 300 ppi at the intended print size is a reliable minimum. For images where edge sharpness matters — text rendered as part of an image, fine line work, sharp geometric shapes — 600–800 ppi will produce cleaner results. Whether an undersize image can be enlarged without visible damage depends on the image.

KDP's specifications for eBook cover images: TIFF or JPEG, RGB color, ideal size 2560×1600 pixels, minimum 1000×625, maximum 10,000 pixels on the longest side, under 50MB.

Stock photo sites with royalty-free options include Pixabay, Unsplash, and Pexels (free) and Shutterstock and Adobe Stock (paid). Confirm licensing terms — specifically that commercial use is permitted — before using any image.

Image preparation is quoted after I've seen the art. Some images need only minor adjustment; others need significant work. I'll ask to see the original files before quoting any project with substantial image content. Poor image preparation leads to disappointing print results — that work is worth doing properly.

KDP accepts both. Ingram Spark requires CMYK.

Some. A year-long testing project — shadow detail, highlight detail, and color fidelity, measured against print scans rather than assumed — found sRGB comes out ahead of CMYK more often than not. Not a landslide, and not true in every case, but consistent enough to call it the safer default. If you're not planning to run test books or do close image work yourself, use sRGB rather than converting to CMYK.

PDF/X-3 — or whatever your standard sRGB-to-print export produces — rather than PDF/X-1a. PDF/X-1a forces an automatic conversion to CMYK, which carries the same downside as converting yourself. KDP's own customer support has confirmed this in writing: use RGB, not CMYK, and a standard PDF, not PDF/X-1a.

No. With print-on-demand, one color image makes the entire interior a color book, priced accordingly. Covers are always treated as full color regardless of whether the interior is color or black and white.

Most commonly available fonts work fine for print. Body text for fiction and nonfiction is traditionally set in a serif font. Headers and chapter titles can be serif or sans serif. For eBooks, font choice rarely matters — most platforms override it.

Two options: change the font, which means reformatting the book, or convert the text to outline in the PDF, which turns editable text into vector outlines and preserves the layout exactly. Because KDP has tightened its font validation, I now routinely provide a second print-ready PDF with outlined text as a precaution.

A properly prepared PDF is the safest option. KDP accepts Word files; Ingram Spark does not. Word files can produce unpredictable results when KDP converts them.

The trim size is the finished dimensions of the book — 6×9, 5.5×8.5, and so on. Everything in the file — margins, image placement, text flow — is calibrated to that size. Getting it wrong means reformatting.

Yes, quoted separately. Cover design varies considerably in complexity and price — a simple type-based cover is a different project from one with custom illustration or composite photography. Contact me to discuss. If budget is a constraint, KDP offers a free Cover Creator tool, and there are independent cover designers working at a range of price points — Damonza and the Reedsy marketplace are reputable options.

Both KDP and Ingram Spark accept PDF for covers. KDP also accepts JPEG and TIFF. The cover must include a barcode area; both platforms generate barcodes automatically if you leave the space. Ingram Spark's requirements are more precise — bleed, spine width calculation, and color profile all matter.

Yes, quoted and billed separately from print. eBook preparation involves removing print-specific elements — running headers and footers, forced line breaks, justification overrides — and verifying that styles will translate correctly to ePub. Depending on the book, this is typically one to three hours of additional work. Final delivery is an ePub file, formatted for KDP and compatible platforms. If you're using booknook.biz for conversion, I can handle the handoff or you can contact them directly.

Not directly. Print files are built for fixed-page layout; eBooks reflow to fit different screens and font sizes. The manuscript is the common starting point, but print and eBook are separate production processes.