A children’s literature author recently sent me the picture of her books printed with Amazon KDP below with this message: “I noticed that the numbers and the symbols on the covers don't match up on the spines if you stack them. It would be nice to align them so that the spines match.”
Two youth fiction novels printed by Amazon KDP. These are sample prints and still have the “NOT FOR RESALE” text around the cover.
I agree with her completely that it would be nice to make the spines match perfectly! But I showed her my cover files, to demonstrate to her that in the files we gave to Amazon KDP, the numbers and logos on the spines do line up. (Originally she had given me the cover of her first book, and asked me to make the cover for book 2 match as perfectly as possible. Everything on the spines is aligned as closely as it can be in the digital version of the files.)
So why do the spines not match up in the print, if they match up in the file? Basically, the trimming and binding at Amazon KDP (and any print on demand printer) is not as accurate and not as high quality as it would be with a traditional book printer. As each book is printed “on demand” (one by one when each book is ordered), the variance comes in somewhere in the printing, trimming and gluing process. A tiny shift anywhere in this process can mean that a spine is not quite centered vertically or horizontally. I assume that the operator (if there is one—the whole POD process might be done digitally) doesn’t have the time to pay attention to finer production details like this.
Unfortunately, this varying quality happens a lot with print on demand printing. If your book really needs to match perfectly, you probably need to print it traditionally and not print on demand! But print on demand has so many other pros, that this small con might not discourage you from using it anyway! Just make sure you know the strengths and weaknesses of print on demand before your commit to one or the other route for book printing and production!
Planning to print with Amazon KDP or IngramSpark or another print on demand printer? Learn more about the process on my articles page!