Had a call from a client a couple of weeks ago. They were struggling to get an Amazon KDP book published. They asked if I knew anything about resizing PDFs, and could I help them if I did. After a brief chat, and knowing nothing about the Amazon KDP platform, I suggested that they send over the PDF for me to examine.

The core problem was the document bleed. This is an area that surrounds the printed page of any publication and is guillotined off in the finishing process. When photographs, images and illustrations reach the edge of the page, it is good practice to extend them a little further, off of the printed page. This ensures that no nasty white borders occur when the paper is trimmed.

Unfortunately the commissioned illustrator of the book hadn’t included a sufficient bleed for a KDP publication. They then tried to fix the problem by reflecting their illustrations in the bleed area, rather than extending the images. Through email chat with the artist, I discovered that they had limited experience of creating documents for print. They’d also used the default settings that the iPad app, that they used to create the book and illustrations, had given them.

Since then I’ve been attempting to fix the artwork and help my client get their book printed. Several PDF iterations have been uploaded to Amazon KDP. But each time the publication has been rejected because of bleed issues, even though my artwork now adheres to Amazon’s specifications.

In sheer desperation, my client spoke to a KDP Amazon agent to establish what the problem was. It transpires that some pages, that had full bleed illustrations, included text which fell into the margins of the page. Mind blowing. Especially when much of the text has been hand drawn with an illustrative quality to match the overall style of the book. So I’ve been resizing and repositioning elements again, in order for them to comply with Amazon’s even stricter KDP rules.

The moral of this tale is for both clients and the creatives that they commission. Make yourself aware of any technical restrictions that have to be factored in to a project. When a subject is unfamiliar take time to do a little research. I often find a wealth of information on most subjects that I don’t know about, just by doing a basic internet search. If templates are provided by an online supplier, then use them. Plus ensure that the software apps you use are robust enough to produce the results required for the final outcome.

So often the giddy excitement of a new project can lead to all these fundamentals being overlooked. The net result is heartache for both client and creative alike, as they wrestle to get a document output correctly without compromising the quality of the content.