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KB0143: What do I do if my Kindle book is rejected by Amazon?

Occasionally, Amazon rejects a Kindle book for no good reason, and gives a vague error message about this format not being supported.

Amazon error messages are notoriously unhelpful and it's not known what causes these errors in all cases, but sometimes KDP has a temporary hiatus, and simply waiting a few hours and trying again may work. It could also be because your cover image is too large, so if you have a high-resolution cover in your Jutoh project, set the configuration option Cover image width to around 600. You will still be prompted to upload a high-resolution version to KDP, which will replace the one inside the book.

Your book may be rejected if your other images are very large (e.g. 3000x4000). If you experience a book rejection without explanation, try reducing your image sizes. You can do this quickly by setting the configuration option Maximum image width to a value such as 800. The original images in your project will be unchanged, but the images in your generated Kindle book will take up less space in the file. If you specify a percentage width for each image, then your images won't appear any smaller in the book.

The limit for Kindle files is currently 650MB, and there are limits on other distribution platforms. Usually you can reduce the size of a book by shrinking the images as above. You may need to remove some of the images in your project if you still can't get under the file limit.

The cover file you upload to KDP may also affect whether your book is rejected, so try a smaller cover or just a dummy image saved with a different program in case it's related to image format (or try uploading the book first, and the cover later).

Also make sure your Reporting Level is set to High (under the list of errors) and take note of any tips about colour or line spacing. Your book may be rejected if you have specified black and white colours that could cause illegibility if the user changes the colour scheme on their reader.

Failing all that, try uploading an Epub to Amazon, preferably one with Kindle optimizations on. Check the Generate Epub option in your Kindle configuration so that you can upload the exact equivalent Epub of the Kindle file. Be aware that if you are also generating Epub files for other services, you need to ensure your Epub files don't clash, so in your Kindle configuration, set the configuration option Book file name to %FILENAME%_Kindle which will result in files with unique names.

If your book is still getting rejected, email Amazon since it can be a spurious error and they may be able to just wave it through. You can also contact us for advice and send us the relevant project file.