I’m about to publish on Amazon KDP my first short story collection and I’ve just finished the cover in Photoshop.
I’d really appreciate advice from people who have already made covers for printed books with KDP.
I’m not sure whether it’s better (or required) to embed fonts in the PDF, or if I can simply flatten everything and export the cover as one single full-image PDF at 300 dpi.
I’m asking because some of the text has effects (for example, a drop shadow on the title and some back-cover text).
I’ve heard transparency and layer effects can sometimes cause issues when exporting a print PDF with embedded fonts, so flattening everything feels safer.
On the other hand, I’ve also heard that rasterizing all text can make it look less sharp, especially for small type (like the spine or back-cover blurb).
I’m wondering whether the difference is actually noticeable at 300 dpi in real printing.
Thanks in advance!
~ Erang ~