Matte vs. Glossy Book Cover | Amazon KDP Proof Copies Comparison & Review

[@IasminaEdina]

➤Check out Hunting Vienna: amzn.to/4g0Acyi Read the first two chapters for free: iasminaedina.com/newsletter/

[@flyingblaze]

Okay, so I may actually have some useful info to share for once. Still working towards my first novel, so take that for what its worth, but I've had some screenplays and journals printed through KDP before and done research on their printing processes. Print quality with AKDP can vary quite a bit as books are printed at many different facilities, and as you mentioned, even then those facilities have different types of machines that are occasionally upgraded. Printing only when there's free resources is how they keep costs low, so they'll use whatever machines are available. But despite the variance, there's things you can do to ensure better results. If anyone wants the best quality out of a printing job, be sure to send as hi-res a production file as possible. If you're an idiot like me you'll send them a low-res version on accident and get really poor results. :) Overall I've found the average quality of KDP books better than other printing places, you just need to do your research and understand what they expect from you. Could be my imagination, but I feel like the glossy covers hold up better in the long run... Thanks for the video Iasmina, it was nice to get a look at the differences between the two books in your case! I agree the colors come through in the glossy version more, you could lead the pack by breaking conventions and publishing your YA novels with gloss covers, start a trend haha

[@IasminaEdina]

Thanks for the info! I can attest to this, since now I have received copies from a couple different printers in Europe and there are differences, though small. Mainly the feel of the matte cover for example is different depending on the printer. And since I'm based in Europe I have only ever tested their printers, no idea how the printing quality is like in the US. And also about the higher res files, initially i sent the highest possible size, i think one was around 700mb 😅 but those came out crisp! When I tried lowering the size since i thought it was silly to send such big files, the result was also a bit lower quality and blurrier around the text, which is what I experienced in this video.

[@phildiamond8549]

KDP book covers are poor - matte and glossy - they peel at the edges very quickly.

[@IasminaEdina]

I haven't really experienced that tbh, and I've read many books printed with KDP. Though I am generally gentle when it comes to handling books when reading, so your mileage may vary. I do think the quality varies a lot depending on which printer in which country is used, and we don't have control over that as authors.