All language subtitles for Full Guide To Creating Amazon KDP Book Covers (2025).en

a big reason why your Amazon KDP

business is not making as much money as

you hoped is because you're getting your

book covers completely wrong now I've

personally sold over a million dollars

worth of books on Amazon KDP and help

multiple students build a full-time

income with this business and trust me

there is so much more to book covers

than them just looking nice so today I'm

going to explain the most common

mistakes people make and give you a full

tutorial of how to make a bestselling

Amazon KDP book cover completely by

yourself so before I go into the full

tutorial of showing you exactly how to

make a KD book cover I need to teach you

the four key components to a bestselling

book cover now the first thing a book

cover must do is what I call stop the

scan it needs to stand out amongst all

of the other books the customer is

currently scanning and grab their

attention now a big mistake a lot of

people make when it comes to their book

covers is they take too much inspiration

from competitive books I do recommend

you take some inspiration from them but

not to the point where your book cover

ends up looking just exactly the same as

all of your competitors because if

you've got five books in a certain Niche

you're competing against and they all

have very similar colors and similar

fonts on their book cover it's going to

be very very difficult to stand out so

in order to stop the scan your book

needs to be a different color to what

they're doing and also ideally use

different typography and different fonts

of those two and that's going to really

stand out and catch your potential buyer

attention now component number two it

needs to be clear what your book is

actually about thanks to all the access

to Quick dopamine these days attention

spans have never been lower people

simply don't have the time to click into

every single Book listing and find out

exactly what the book is about and

therefore your book cover needs to do

that instantly without them having to

actually click into the full listing and

within this text and Graphics are going

to be the two main things that allow you

to do this first your text needs to be

clear and easy to read and tell the

customer exactly what your book is about

if it's an animal coloring book tell

them on the cover it's an animal

coloring book don't try and be fancy and

package it up in some kind of cool and

quirky way just tell them what they want

and need to know and then secondly the

elements on your book should complement

what your title is about so if your

title is animal coloring book for kids

the elements on there should be animals

in kind of kid format it sounds really

obvious but so many people get this

wrong the elements on your book should

help reiterate what the text on your

cover is trying to say so a book cover

is more than just a cover it's this

whole package alog together that tries

to relay across information to your

customer make it easy to read make it

super specific and have elements that

support the book title now component

number three is similar to what I've

just mentioned there but it's slightly

different and that is that it needs to

deliver on its title if your book cover

and your book title are not aligned it's

going to put so many people off as you

can see here here's an example of a

kawaii cat coloring book they haven't

called it Kawaii cat coloring book

they've tried to be clever and they've

called it whisker wonders which again

sounds cool sounds quirky but the

customer doesn't care when they're

searching amongst loads of other books

all they say here is whisker wonders

they want to see the words Kawaii cat

coloring book they don't care about

whisker wonders Kawaii cat coloring book

only appears in very small text and

that's extremely hard to see when you're

just scanning all of the these products

and as you can see this book has no

reviews so I doubt it's selling very

well at all and this is a huge problem

and one you want to make sure that

you're avoiding and the final component

of a bestselling book cover is that it

needs to go the extra mile sorry to

break the news to you but canvas Sands

and Times New Roman fonts just aren't

going to cut it again if you want your

book cover to stand out you need to be

using fonts and typography that allows

it to do that and ideally this font will

support the packaging of your entire

book so if your book is maybe a dog

coloring book if you can have some kind

of font that you download from the

internet that is themed around dogs

maybe it has dog PS in it or something

like that that is even better cuz it

just adds and builds onto the packaging

of your title and also the text on your

book cover a lot of time these kind of

texts you will need to download but

again you have to remember the more

effort it takes you the less likely is

that any of your competitors will have

done it themselves so don't see this as

a Bad Thing remember your book cover is

your first impression don't make it a

bad one and put time and effort into it

so those are the four components of a

bestselling book cover I'm now going to

take those and start creating a book

cover myself to show you exactly how I

actually apply them and bring one to

life from scratch now just before we get

into the fun stuff we need to First make

sure that our book cover dimensions are

right boring I know but it just needs to

be done else your book will just get

rejected when you try to upload it to

Amazon the good news is it's super easy

all you need to do is go to KDP cover

calculator on Google and it's this first

link that you'll see here and then you

just need to put in some information

about your book so I'll go through and

show you what you need to do we need to

go for paperback our interior type is

going to be a black and white interior

paper type is going to be white paper

reading Direction left to right

measurement units are going to be in

inches and for this book example that

I'm going to show you in this video

we're going to make a square book so an

8.5 by an 8.5 book remember 8.5x 11 is

generally a four size and then 6X 9 is

generally a five size in this video as I

say we're going to go for an 8.5 by an

8.5 with a page count of 108 pages all

you need to do then is go ahead and just

press calculate dimensions and as you

can see here are all the correct

dimensions for our book cover when you

go to actually first create the canvas

this is the width you need to put in and

then this is also the height that you

need to put in before you do that just

go ahead and press download template and

that's going to download a drag and drop

template you can put straight into your

file and start creating your book cover

now we're going to be using a tool

called K to bring this book cover to

life now you probably seen k a few times

on my channel is in my opinion the best

tool and software that you can use to

create KDP books especially if you're

making something like a KDP coloring

book or a KDP book cover and you'll see

exactly why in this video if you want to

access K you can check out the link

below down in the description and if you

also use a discount code on screen you

can get yourself a 25% discount too I've

used it many times in this channel

honestly could not recommend it enough

the first thing we need to do to bring

our book cover to life is firstly change

the units from pixels to inches then

input the dimensions that we just took

from that KDP cover calculator so it was

17.49 and then it was

8.75 and those are the dimensions for

our book cover go ahead and just press

create and this is the file that it has

generated for us now it doesn't look

like a book cover file at the moment but

you have to remember when you upload

book covers to Amazon KDP you upload the

front cover and the back cover in the

same file so the front cover is going to

go here and the back cover is going to

go here and in terms of where you

position everything on your page well

that's exactly why we just downloaded

that template from the cover calculator

so all you want to do is go over to

uploads and then upload that file that

you just downloaded and as you can see

here is that file all you want to do is

bring that all the way to the top of

your screen and then drag it right down

to the bottom corner and this should fit

perfectly cuz it's specifically

generated for the those Dimensions that

we just put in so now you can see here's

our front cover and here is our back

cover so for demonstration purposes of

this video I'm going to recreate and

improve this Kawaii animals coloring

book that I found on Amazon because for

you it's very beneficial for you to see

you know example of something that I

don't consider to be a great book cover

and show you how this exact book cover

could look so much better so this is

exactly what we're going to be

reproducing in this video and as you can

see in this Niche if you type in Kawai

animals coloring book there are loads of

book covers but they're all just so

clustered they look quite overwhelming

there's so much going on in all of the

these book covers so I think a lot of

them could be vastly improved and this

specifically is the one we're going to

be improving so I've actually gone ahead

and created this book cover already as

you can see it's this one on screen and

what I want to do is break down this and

reverse engineer everything step by step

and show you exactly how I brought this

to life and then at the end summarize

and explain why it's so much better than

that existing book cover that I just

showed you so the first step to creating

this book cover is I always say you have

to create the front cover first and then

the back cover you create at the end the

front cover is by far the most important

part of any any KDP book cover file so

the first thing you need to do is go

ahead and put a background in so here is

the template we're going to be using to

show you exactly how I did that so all I

did was go into elements and I found a

black Square drag this in and just made

this exactly the same width or the right

width as the front cover as you can see

pulling this all the way down here and

then I just change this color to Blue so

I can see this blue here going to go

ahead and just copy that hex code click

back into this Square here and then

change the color there to Blue and there

you go that's the first step of our book

cover complete super easy just putting

in in the background now the next thing

I did was put the title smack bang in

the middle of our book as you can see

Kawaii animals coloring book for kids

and again this goes back to what I

mentioned at the start of the video when

it comes to the packaging and just the

book needs to deliver exactly what the

title is saying if the title of this

book is Kawaii animals you need to make

sure this appears smack bang in the

front of the book cuz when the customer

is scanning they know exactly what this

book is about they see Kawaii animals

coloring book for kids bam no need to

over complicate it they know exactly

what they're getting from this book now

I actually really like this font too

it's much better than the default fonts

that you can see it's actually a font I

downloaded called cute Dino so when it

comes to getting the best fonts for your

KDP book covers I do recommend you

download them online there are loads of

websites if you just type in font

downloader into Google you can just find

loads and loads of different sites and

also fonts that you can download there

and then when it comes to adding these

fonts into K all you want to do is go

ahead and press this text button and

then add a headline and that's going to

drag in drop this default text that

doesn't look very good but that's why

you've gone ahead and downloaded some

other text that you can go ahead and

import now to import this into Kito it's

very simple all you want to do is go

onto the type face here and then just

press this upload button and then just

find the text file that you just

downloaded so for me it was just this

cute d.f file it can sometimes be a ttf

file too go ahead just press that and

then you have access to that font on K

it's honestly so easy so then I just

typed in Kawaii and then did exactly the

same copy and pasted this uh text box

and then just put animals in here

because it's good to have control over

each individual element so as you can

see it looks good but it's nowhere near

as good as this and that's because I

haven't yet used any text effects so

what you want to do to do that is go

down to text shading and then I actually

chose this one on the right hand side if

I just go up to the details here the

offset was four the angle was- 69 and

the outline width was 15 so if I go to

outline width as 15 - 69 and the offset

I can't remember what the offset was it

was four offset of four and then the

colors I Ed for the main text I used

this color here so we're going to go

ahead and grab that

put this into there and then the actual

outline I've gone for this font here so

it's all done in HEX code so it's super

easy just to go ahead and copy go down

to here and drop that in there and as

you can see that's exactly what we've

done for this font and I just did

exactly the same thing for the animals

and then also the coloring book for kids

and that left us with exactly what we've

got here so the next part of the front

cover is actually the thing that makes

most of the difference it's actually the

most fun part of it and that's

generating these images here and this is

why I recommend using K because the

image generation feature is so so so

easy to use and as you can see the

quality of the images are really good

too so all you want to do is go over to

this K AI generator and then just go for

this image generator option here and

then the best thing about K is you can

choose loads of different clip art

styles they actually have a kawaii icon

style and I just typed in Happy Dog and

it's going to basically read this happy

dog and create a happy dog in the style

of a kawaii icon and then just go ahead

and press generate image as you can see

it will cost you one credit if you do

have a plan with K you obviously get

more credits and as you can see this is

the image that has generated for us it's

actually a little bit different to the

dog that we've got on this example but

of course it's not going to be exactly

the same image every time and you

wouldn't want it to be cuz you want your

designs to be unique from everybody

else's but let's just say we wanted to

use this dog in our design let's bring

this down to the file that we've got so

far then all you want to do to add this

to your book cover you want to just go

to remove background you want to click

on the actual image itself then go ahead

and just press remove background and

that's going to automatically using AI

get rid of this completely white space

behind it make it a little bit smaller

and then just drop this onto your front

cover it is literally that simple and

before something like K you'd have to

pay a freelancer so much money to

generate these individual kind of clip

art Kawaii style icon images for you but

K makes it so much easier and so much

cheaper to do it then for the rest of

the animals just do exactly the same

thing go back over to the image

generator go ahead and press back and

then let's go for another one let's Type

in Happy lion and then generate image

and then it's just exactly the same

process go ahead and remove the

background that's going to get rid of

all the white space behind it make it

smaller and then add this to your book

file so all I did was rinse and repeat

this process until I had my book cover

that looks exactly like this so this

looks really complicated but as you can

see it's actually very straightforward

to do and then the next thing I did was

go in and just add these elements to the

front cover just to fill up a little bit

of that blank space now again if you

cast your mind back to the start of the

video I was saying the elements you use

in your book cover need to support the

overall packaging this is a kawaii

animals coloring book for kids so having

things like Po prints just supplements

the rest of the packaging already so

it's super easy to go ahead and add

these in let's go and add these into our

file here go over to element and then

just type in P print so many different

options to choose from let's go ahead

and just use this one and at the moment

it's currently this blue color so we

want to make it black and the next thing

you want to do is make sure it doesn't

quite stand out quite as much as this

cuz this looks quite strong here as you

can see ours are a lot smaller so make

this a lot smaller then what you can

also do is change this percentage here

and this basically changes the

transparency if you click in here you

can either change it by doing this or

you can go ahead and type it in yourself

let's make this a little bit more

transparent and as you can see this now

looks like it Blends in a lot more with

our book cover so again just went and

repeated this process until I had a

design with all of these P prints in so

now the final piece of the puzzle is to

add in the back cover of our overall

book cover file and again the back cover

is nowhere near as important as the

front cover for something like a

coloring book it's really important you

use examples of what the images might

actually look like in the file so as you

can see I've just got two black and

white images of the same things we've

got on our front cover and this is super

easy to do again with the text I just

went ahead and copied this and put it

onto the back cover and then just bring

this to the front as you can see this is

now overlaying and we also need to go

ahead and just press copy and paste this

back cover too so it just has exactly

the same color all the way through the

file and then went through and then just

changed this text to 50 Unique Designs

to color I'm not going to do that now

because you know how to do that that's

very straightforward but what I am going

to show you to do is how to get these

images like they are here so all I did

is copy and pasted again this image from

one of the dogs or take whatever image

you want to then with K all you need to

do is go ahead and press this vectorized

button and then change it to something

like four or five colors this just makes

it very easy to turn this into a black

and white image and what it would do is

it would change some of the colors and

you want to make sure the blacks just

stay black and then change everything

else to White so it basically breaks

down the image into just the colors that

you select and we're just selecting

black and white and as you can see just

like that our dog has now been

transformed into a black and white image

and it's exactly the same for all of the

other designs I've just done exactly the

same thing with the tiger 2 so that is

honestly so straightforward and this is

the final product that we've got for our

coloring book so now that we're happy

with our book cover all we need to do is

go ahead and download it just press this

export button here and then make sure

you're exporting it as a PDF and then go

ahead and select the artboard that you

want so for our example our finished

product is this artboard 5 go ahead and

press export and that's exactly the file

you're going to upload to Amazon KDP and

now I'm going to bring this full circle

and show you exactly why this is a

significantly better coloring book than

the one I showed you at the start so if

we go all the way back to the four

components of a bestselling book cover

firstly it needs to to stop the scroll

it needs to be bold and stand out from

all the other books on the market as you

can see here our bright blue color of

our book is going to easily stand out

from all of these which are much similar

colors you see lots of Pinks lots of

kind of bright like really really light

oranges here ours is definitely going to

stand out as you can see this one

definitely stands out from all the

others and it's a very similar color to

the one we've got so I'm pretty

confident that our book cover will stop

the scan and stand out amongst all of

these other books the second component

is that it needs to be clear exactly

what the book is about if you zoom out

here you can see straight away bam this

blue catches your attention and the next

thing you look at straight away is

Kawaii animals it tells the customer

straight away exactly what our book is

about so not only does our book cover at

the moment stop the scan it's also very

clear what it's about and on top of that

it also takes the box of component

number three is that it delivers on the

title the title of our book here is

going to be something like Kawaii

animals coloring book for kids cuz

that's literally what it is so if that's

the case our book cover needs to show

that so this is going to show up

alongside our title and this completely

matches what we've got on our listing

we're not confusing the customer like in

that example I showed you at the start

of the video our book cover is exactly

what it says on the tin keep it simple

keep it specific and that will massively

help your book and then finally it needs

to go the extra milees we've actually

gone ahead and downloaded our own custom

font from Google if you compare it to

this book cover here as you can see they

have got an outline on their text but

it's nowhere near the level of ours ours

just look significantly better because

we've gone the extra mile with our book

cover and this first impression straight

away is just significantly better than

all the other ones on the market so that

is a step-by-step tutorial of how to

produce a bestselling book cover for

Amazon KDP now of course your book cover

needs to have a really good interior to

go with it so if you want to check out a

video showing how to do exactly that you

can check out the one you can see on

screen here where I use exactly the same

piece of software to generate the book

interior