Kindle ebook cover rejected or flagged as blurry: KDP's cover rules and how to fix them

An ebook cover is a single picture of the front of your book. It isn't the print cover: no back, no spine, no barcode. Most rejections come down to its size, its file type or its colour type, and most "blurry" notices come from a picture that started too small.

KDP's ebook cover rules (as at 4 October 2026)

• File type: JPEG or TIFF. JPEG is preferred.
• Size: ideally 2,560 pixels tall by 1,600 wide. The minimum is 1,000 tall by 625 wide, and the maximum is 10,000 pixels either way.
• Shape: at least 1.6 times as tall as it is wide.
• Colour: RGB, the colour type screens use. Kindle doesn't support CMYK, the colour type used for print.
• File size: KDP's upload page says under 50 MB; its publishing guidelines say 5 MB or less. Keep it under 5 MB and you meet both.
• Compression: upload with as little compression as possible. Amazon compresses it again for display.
• Content: front cover only, with no spine, barcode or back cover, and no prices or limited-time offers.

Covers with fewer than 500 pixels on the shortest side aren't shown on the website. For a very pale cover, KDP suggests a narrow grey border of 3 to 4 pixels so it doesn't vanish against a white page.

Flagged as blurry

After a book is published, KDP can send quality notices, and its help lists one saying the cover image is blurry. The fix is to correct the cover and upload it again. The usual causes:

• A small picture stretched to fit.
• A screenshot of the cover, which is often too small.
• Heavy JPEG compression, which leaves smudgy blocks.
• A cover cut out of a print PDF at a low size.

Making a small image bigger doesn't help. Apple Books warns specifically against enlarging a smaller image to meet its minimum, and rejects covers that are excessively blurry or pixelated.

How to fix it in Word

Word can't save a picture at an exact pixel size, so it isn't the tool for an ebook cover. Don't paste the cover into Word or a PDF and screenshot it. Instead:

1. Find the original cover artwork, or ask your designer for a 1,600 x 2,560 pixel RGB JPEG of the front cover.
2. Check its size: on Windows, right-click the file, choose Properties, then the Details tab. "Dimensions" shows the pixels.
3. Check it's under 5 MB.
4. Upload it in KDP's Kindle eBook Content page.

Using a designer, InDesign, Affinity or Canva? Export the front cover only, without bleed, as an RGB JPEG at 1,600 x 2,560 pixels and high quality. If you're starting from the print cover, crop away the back, spine and bleed, and convert it from CMYK to RGB first.

Other ebook stores

One 1,600 x 2,560 RGB JPEG works for most of them:

Kobo's suggested shape (3:4) is wider than KDP's, so check how your cover looks there.

Check before you upload

Bervet's free ebook cover checker looks over your cover image against these store rules before you upload. It runs in your browser and nothing is uploaded.