I've done multiple tutorials showing you how to design book covers using Canva. In one of those videos, someone commented that Canva book covers get rejected. Since I've never published a book with a cover designed in Canva, I got curious, and I dug up a whole mess of issues. Supposedly, there are accounts being terminated because they used Canva, covers being rejected, and there are lots of copyright infringement issues. I did a little bit of a deep dive to figure out what issues people are encountering and solutions to those issues. But ultimately, I want to answer: can you self-publish a book to KDP if you designed it using Canva?
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Mandi Lynn published her first novel when she was seventeen. The author of multiple books, Mandi spends her days continuing to write and creating YouTube videos to help other writers achieve their dreams of seeing their books published. Mandi is the owner of Stone Ridge Books, a company that works to help authors bring their books to life through cover design and digital book marketing. She is also the creator of The Book Launch Planner, a planner designed to help authors publish and market their books. When she’s not creating, you can find Mandi exploring her backyard or getting lost in the woods.
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#canva #amazonkdp #selfpublishing
Title:
KDP Canva Ban: Can You Self-Publish a Book to KDP if You Designed It In Canva?
Search terms: can you use canva for amazon kdp, self publish with canva, canva book cover design
Want to learn more about book cover design? Check out my courses here: https://stoneridgebooks.teachable.com/p/book-cover-design-course-bundle
I heard that Canva had a piracy issue a while back. Not so much with the free images, but with some paid images. I’m not sure if they cleared that up or not. I think if someone was going to use Canva to design their book cover, I would just recommend bringing in their main images that they own or licensed from other places. Ultimately, I think Photoshop is superior for book covers. And I highly recommend to anyone interested in taking your courses.
Definitely stay away from AI. It’s a legal nightmare waiting to happen – across industry. Thank you for helping navigate around this shifting landscape ❤
I used Canva to modify the size of a paperback cover. I used KDP’s cover template generator, like you suggested. It took me a few tries, but I ended up with a cover KDP accepted. Note the art and fonts were created by a professional.
Canva has never been a problem for any of my covers—just dont use AI
I’ve never had a problem using covers designed in Canva on KDP. I use multiple elements in each design, avoid AI, and use a KDP template to make sure it’s the right size. If you follow the rules, it’s fine.
I always use Canva and never had an issue, just don’t use AI and use the KDP template. I’ve published seven books. ❤
Great info, Mandi ❤
Mine is fine, but I did the design myself.
I use Canva to design my book covers but I don’t really use the assets to often, I get stuff from deposit photos and creative fabrica so never had an issue.
Affinity designer is free. It’s software is similar to photoshop, illustrator. I’m not sure if it still has indesign features since going free.
Might be a good free alternative for other authors.
Love your videos. Can you use AI for the blurb on the back of your book? And if so would you state you used AI in your book?
Canva can do book covers!? I never knew that. I literally just started using it yesterday for videos and posts. Hope this isn’t a permanent problem.
I don’t use photoshop anymore. I moved away from photoshop and Adobe in general a couple years ago, and started using Affinity. Which for authors is a 1 to 1 transfer from Adobe’s platform.The irony here is that Canva now owns Affinity and has made it completely free to get and use. The only thing you would get a subscription for is to use their AI generation software, which still beats Adobe by only being less that $150 a year. So, yeah, I would say save yourself a metric ton of money and ditch Adobe. You can get 90% of all the same functionality for formatting and cover design in Affinity for free.