Support for Indie Authors discussion

OK so this is weird.

I made a small change to Silver Victory. (I am severely red-faced that I somehow renamed a minor character in my last three books.)

So I upload the PDF, same exact settings as before, and KDP is now complaining about text outside the cutter area. Looking at the errors they are all lower case 'f's at the end of lines that end in the gutter.

Say what?

Anyone else seen such odd behavior? I could adjust the gutter margin upwards, of course, but that means a full review of the paging, etc. to make sure it doesn't cause some other issue later on.

It just bugs me that this is such a specific instance that was never flagged before.

TIA.

OK quick update.

I bit the bullet and upped the gutter to .64". I had to fuss with some paging issues but nothing that changed the overall length of the book.

Should be fine, right? After all, .64 > .625 all day every day.

No.

KDP is now complaining about f's and j' in italics exceeding the gutter margin. Fewer errors, yes, but still there.

Looking at the document in Word, they're over the limit there, too.

So, problem is in Word,

I think.

Rock wrote: "OK quick update.

I bit the bullet and upped the gutter to .64". I had to fuss with some paging issues but nothing that changed the overall length of the book.

Should be fine, right? After all, ..."

Hi Rock! Can I ask how tight your margins are set? I've never had this issue with any of the books I've formatted and I use Word all the time.

I always use the free templates KDP offers and Kindle Create for Amazon. I've never had a problem using this method.

Phillip wrote: "I always use the free templates KDP offers and Kindle Create for Amazon. I've never had a problem using this method."

Maybe Amazon has issued an update?

Phillip wrote: "I always use the free templates KDP offers and Kindle Create for Amazon. I've never had a problem using this method."

I'm with you, Phillip, and use the templates and Kindle Create. Microsoft Word for books on all retailers - haven't had any issues.

Thanks for your comments, all.

I don't use the KDP templates but do follow the published KDP Word instructions. I've never had a problem with posting the PDF export from Word to KDP for a paperback, or even IngramSpark for that matter. Same file both places.

As I said above, at .64" the problem morphed to the tails of italic j's and the heads or tails of italic f's just barely - like, just the little tiny ball at the far end of both letters - appearing past the margin. Zooming in far enough, I could see the problem in Word (365, current version).

I finally upped the gutter margin to .65". I was surprised at how much that affected paging. Overall, the book picked up eight or ten lines where words like 'extra' weren't hyphenated but wrapped, pushing the following line to wrap, too. I have some rules about paging between scenes, but with some fussing and cussing I managed to get it back to the right number of pages.

It is hard to know for sure, but I suspect the problem is in Word. I have author copies of Silver Victory on the shelf and in all the places KDP complained about when the margin was .63", they printed just fine.

Thanks again for responding. Hopefully this won't happen again, but I may just raise the gutter to .65 in the future and call it good.

Just a thought...are you by chance using a new font? If there was a problem with the font itself, it might give Word some issues.

Hi William - no, same old TNR font.

Aside from the margin errors, take a look at fonts other than TNR. It has a heavy, nonfiction vibe.

In general, the most popular fonts, per Ingram, are Caslon, Garamond, Jenson, and Minion.

I don't know about that. My hardback copy of 'Project Hail Mary' appears to be in TNR, as is 'Contact' and 'Robots of Dawn.'

If I compare 11 pt TNR to 11 pt Garamond, for example, I find the TNR much easier to read. But then, I am old, after all.

In any case this is a new problem, where previous versions of the same work in TNR had no problems. So, I am not thinking the font itself is the root of the issue.

I thought Amazon preferred TNR for print and Kindle books. Is this information in error?

Dorothy -

I don't think that's the case. I looked at the font instructions for paperbacks (KDP Help Topic G202145450) and here's what I found:

"Times New Roman and Arial are popular, but there are other options. When choosing a font, look for something simple and easy to read long passages of. More elaborate fonts can be effective for headers and chapter titles but aren't recommended for body text.

A few options for body text are:

Centaur
Garamond
Hightower Text
Palatino Linotyp"

Later on, it says:

"Experiment to find the font that best fits your paperback. Set some sample pages in your selected font. When you see a whole page with thousands of characters on it, you'll have a sense of whether the font matches your book's content and tone.

Note: The fonts recommended above are suggestions. You are responsible for securing the required licenses for any fonts used in your book."

KDP doesn't care what font you use. They're a print-house, not a publisher. You send the manuscript, and they feed it into the machine. And after having had dealings with their helpdesk (offshore, of course), for problems with their printed colors matching those on the image the customer supplies, I can tell you, with assurance, that what they say is not to be taken as gospel. They always have an excuse, for why it must be the customer's fault.

For the font choices always, start to the pros. Do a search on the most common fiction fonts in use today. Then, on your printer, pop out a page of those you think you most like, and compare them.

Everything Jay said.

Jay wrote: "KDP doesn't care what font you use. They're a print-house, not a publisher. You send the manuscript, and they feed it into the machine. And after having had dealings with their helpdesk (offshore, ..."

Very well said, Jay.

I will add there are some fonts Amazon won't allow you to use. I own an extensive collection of fonts and have run across the situation before. With Nocturne Serif, if memory serves. It created an error message with the process, so do be careful with exotic font selections.

In a print book, I don't think Amazon cares about the font, but in e-books there have to be restrictions because not all ebook-reading devices will support all fonts. A recent fantasy book I formatted for a client used a fancy font for chapter titles which was repeatedly stripped out of the e-book version. Amazon kept substituting a more common font. I noticed. The client didn't. So, in the end, I just accepted the substitution. Just a side note, not relevant to the topic at hand.

William wrote: "In a print book, I don't think Amazon cares about the font, but in e-books there have to be restrictions because not all ebook-reading devices will support all fonts. A recent fantasy book I format..."

Hi William. With ebooks it's the device that decides on which font is displayed. In order to have specific fonts used you need to embed them in the ebook file. Even then, the reader can choose to change the font if they like.

Dorothy wrote: "I thought Amazon preferred TNR for print and Kindle books. Is this information in error?"

As others have said, KDP doesn't care as long as you have the right to use the font. That is your reponsibility.
TNR is popular but many of us can't read it as well as other fonts.

The ones being used today are: Garamond, Palatino, Calibri, Bookman Old Style, Merriweather, Montserrat, Raleway, and Roboto . Some are serif and some are sans serif.

The only advice is to use a font that fits your book and make it large enough to read easily. Garamond and Palitino are smaller fonts, so you may need to make the larger. I find TNR is too light for me, so I use a heavier font. Meanwhile I had a reviewer who insisted on TNR since that was the easiest for her to read.

I've discovered for KDP that using a template is easy and I haven't had a problem with the templates. Or you can just have a MS Word doc with only headers and titles for chapters and use Draft2Digital to make a .mobi to use on Amazon. I publish through them since they are easy, have good rates and are more responsive than KDP for set up problems.

A thought: It sounds to me that since others aren't seeing the problem, the problem might be what you're using to convert to PDF.

From experience, I can say that Word 2016 and 2011 work.

But because of glitches in the past I always varify the presentation with Acrobat.