Design an eBook cover that still works as a thumbnail

Four layouts, eight palettes and optional wordless artwork under the type — rendered at KDP's 1600 × 2560 and carried into every export.

Written September 11, 2026

Quick answer

The cover engine is typographic first: the title, subtitle and author name are set on one of four publishing grids (editorial, centred, band, frame) over one of eight palettes, so the cover reads at the thumbnail size a store actually shows. An optional artwork layer — a wordless image drawn from your description — sits under the type, tinted so the type wins; lettering is never painted into the picture. The same render becomes the first page of the PDF, the cover image inside the EPUB, the title page of the DOCX, and a JPEG download at KDP's ideal 1,600 × 2,560 pixels.

Step by step

A practical sequence

1
Finish the title and subtitle in the outline — the cover is set from them.
2
Open the cover view: the layout and palette start from the book's format, and every choice after that is yours.
3
Optionally describe the artwork — a still life, an abstract, a texture — and draw it; take another if the first is wrong.
4
Check the preview at its smallest size; if the title is not legible there, shorten it.
5
Download the cover JPEG for the store, or export the book — the cover is already inside.

In short

Four layouts × eight palettes
Wordless artwork under the type
One render in every export, KDP-sized

Common questions

Straight answers

Is the artwork AI-generated?+

Yes, from an image model, and always without lettering. On KDP an AI-generated cover image is declared the same way AI text is; the disclosure tool explains the categories.

Can I use my own image?+

Not yet — the layer is drawn from a description. Uploading an image is on the plan.

Continue

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