Kindle Direct Publishing has recently started giving us authors the access
to create print-on-demand hardcovers today I’ll be reviewing the quality
of these hardcovers and telling you about the process of creating one
first I’ll talk about what the creation process was like for making a KDP hardcover honestly I
was pleasantly surprised when I found out just how easy it really is to create a hardcover through
KDP if you're familiar at all with formatting a paperback book for KDP it is a very similar
process and KDP has documentation with all of the requirements so it's pretty much a breeze
I format my books in Microsoft word so all I had to do to create a hardcover interior file
was take a copy of my KDP paperback file then just readjust the size of the paper margins images and
then tweak a little bit of the formatting to make the file I could use for a hardcover basically
everything else is just like making a paperback for KDP though the KDP hardcovers do have a few
limitations that the paperbacks don't though I hope that most of these won't be limitations
in the future due to this still being in a beta testing sort of phase so first for the trim sizes
there are only five options for KDP hardcovers and they are 5.5 by 8.5, 6 by 9, 6.14 by 9.21,
7 by 10, and 8.25 by 11. There are also only three ink and paper options as opposed to the paperbacks
where we have four, the only ink and paper options for the hard covers are black and white interior
on cream paper, black and white interior on white paper, and premium color on white paper. You’ll
notice the missing standard color on white paper, that is what we also have with the paperbacks.
also the page count limits of hardcovers are a little bit different from the paperbacks,
so for the hardcovers they must be between 75 and 550 pages, unlike paperbacks which depending on
trim size can actually be anywhere from 24 to 828 pages. Luckily with hardcovers we usually
choose a larger trim size than our paperbacks so it makes it a little bit easier to get the
page countdown though I can definitely see this 550 page limit being a problem for some of us
especially in the fantasy and sci-fi sphere where we generally write very long books. so
for the first book in my series the paperback is 298 pages and the hardcover is 253 pages
so very similar but the hardcover does still come in at a little bit of a lower page count
so looking at some other books both traditional and indie it is normal for hardcovers to come in
between like 20 and 60 pages shorter than their paperback counterparts. I did end up giving my
hardcover pages a much wider margin on the sides just to give it a more premium feel while you're
reading and also to bring that page count up a little bit to kind of stay within that 20 to
60 page range that you see in most other books. And the last limitation for the KDP hardcovers
is that the only option is case laminate hardcovers, in either glossy or matte finish.
so a case laminate cover pretty much just means that the cover is printed directly onto
the hard cover of the book, and there is no dust jacket or any pieces that come off of the book,
so as of now there are no options for cloth bound hard covers or dust jackets, but as
this is a beta program I do really hope that that is something they will bring out soon as I know
a lot of us would prefer that, and I am just really hoping for that. I do also hope that at
some point they'll be able to do what Ingramspark has started doing recently which is letting you
customize the clothbound covers by printing images on them, I think this just looks super cool and
it really does give a book a more premium feel, which is kind of the point of hardcovers for a lot
of readers they want a more premium looking book and a more sturdy construction. If I am creating
a KDP printing wish list here I would also like to add to that an eggshell option for cover finishes,
but you know one more like this where it's kind of satin its way more durable but it also doesn't
have the crazy glare that you get with normal glossy hardcovers. Okay now back to your regularly
scheduled programming. all right so making the cover file for the hardcovers was also very easy
um you just do the same process as making a paperback cover but you need just a little
bit more of the background on all the edges because when they make the actual hard cover,
I’m not sure if you can see exactly but when they make the actual case laminate hardcover,
they need enough of the image to wrap all the way around, and glue underneath this end paper,
this is the really thick white paper here, so they need enough of the cover to go underneath here,
so that they can glue this on top, and you never know exactly how much of it is going to show,
so you do need to make sure you have enough of your background to wrap all the way down,
to the inside on all sides. I could see this being kind of difficult for some people's designs and
that could even be enough to make people want to wait until they have dust jackets just for that
reason. Thankfully when I created the covers for these books I had the idea in mind that
sometime in the future I’d be doing hardcovers so I definitely left myself enough background to work
with. now something weird did happen with shipping on this hardcover um with my proof so I ordered
the proof on September 16th and it originally said it would arrive between the 26th and the 30th
and then the next day it said it would arrive between the 28th and the 30th until the 19th
when it said it would arrive tomorrow on the 20th which is when it actually got there. yeah I’m not
sure what the printing and shipping times pretty much all the proofs that I’ve ordered from KDP
ever have been printed pretty much the next day after I have ordered them and when you get your
proof you'll always know when it was printed back of your book and see this little page here has
print date and where it was printed, which is pretty cool. so like I said I was not originally
planning on having hardcovers come out at almost the same time as the actual book's release date
at the time KDP didn't have an option for hardcovers and I didn't want to go through the
whole process of doing Ingramspark because that would have pushed my release date by probably a
lot, but then seriously a week, less than a week, actually, I think six days, before my release day
I see this interesting little icon on my KDP dashboard that says “Hardcovers Beta.”
I wasn't thinking about trying it out right away but then I just got too curious and I had to stay
up till one o'clock in the morning finishing an interior file so that I could order myself a
proof and see what it was all about. okay so here is a close-up look of the KDP hardcover compared
to the KDP paperback side by side they both look pretty good and I don't really see any big
quality issues with the hardcovers, mine did come with what I believe is just a
manufacturing error about right here I can catch a bit of glare you might be able to see it,
not really. well right here there's just a bit of what appears to be um just a little issue with the
glossy coating, it's kind of like mattified in that area, so it may just be not as shiny
because of the coating or maybe it was scratched or something during shipping, I’m not really sure,
it doesn't appear to be glue, I can't really scratch it off, but yeah there's just a little bit
of a defect there, perhaps but I don't think I’ve seen that issue on any other KDP books before.
also upon arrival the pages were a little bit um wavy or rippled, you can actually see it is still
a bit wavy and rippled in there, this was shipped to me in a cardboard box instead of the usual
plastic bubble mailers that I always get with my KDP paperbacks, not sure why they did that I
think maybe just the size of book doesn't fit into the regular bubble mailers, but it could have just
been moisture from shipping as well, that kind of give me a little bit of like a just like a wavy
it's not super compressed where if you look at the paperback like it's all just--I
have read this one actually so it might be a bit, but you know, it comes in it's just like that,
and it's just all perfectly flat and compacted, whereas this one I don't know it just has a little
bit of like, a not perfectly aligned to it for some reason. okay so if we take a look inside, the
end paper is actually really nice end paper it is very thick it's basically like card stock, so I’d
say if I’m comparing it to some other paper type it seems a lot thicker than some other end papers,
it really feels like pretty much like cardstock, um and the regular paper that the you know rest
of the book is actually printed on it looks really good I think it is the exact same paper as we have
in the paperbacks, you know this could be a touch thinner on the hardcover but I really can't tell,
is very very close, if anything. the color looks about the same to me as well and there's always
going to be slight color differences I think in just different um batches of paper that they make
anyway, but I’m only comparing the cream colored paper here as that is what all my books are going
to be printed in, so I can't tell you if the white paper is the same or not. as for image
quality I don't think there's any difference in image quality or print quality really overall
between the paperbacks and the hardcovers, so no issues there, seems fine, it doesn't
seem any thicker or narrower than any other traditional hardcover book that you would find,
you can see they bind it with a black and white tape here. yeah overall they seem to
be pretty good quality hardcover books for print on demand, so yes very exciting I do
like the KDP hardcovers I think they are pretty good quality for a print-on-demand hardcover,
I know some people with Ingramspark have had huge quality issues in the past though I believe
those are getting better in the last year or two. if you'd like to dive into the world of
Olexia you can check out both Age of the Gods and The Legend of Mendi which are available for
free on my website linked down below, also The Delinquent Crown and The Dormant Titan,
books one and two of my Olexia Legends YA fantasy series are out now, so you can find the link to
that in the description as well. Alright that's all I got for you so thanks for watching, bye!