5.25" × 8" cover size for a 250-page book
Spine width, full-wrap dimensions, and print-ready pixel sizes for a 250-page 5.25" × 8" KDP paperback on white paper with a black-ink interior.
- Spine width
- 0.563"
- Full cover (no bleed)
- 11.063" × 8.000"
- Full cover (with bleed)
- 11.313" × 8.250"
- At 300 DPI
- 3,394 px × 2,475 px
Change the paper, ink, or page count
The calculator below starts on this book's settings. Switching to cream paper or a colour interior changes the spine width, because the paper is a different thickness.
Your cover dimensions
| Measurement | Inches | Centimeters | Pixels @300dpi | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full cover width (with bleed) | 11.313 | 28.74 | 3394 | 814.5 |
| Full cover height (with bleed) | 8.250 | 20.96 | 2475 | 594.0 |
| Spine width | 0.563 | 1.43 | 169 | 40.5 |
Cover bleed is a flat 0.125in on every non-spine edge, per KDP's published spec (verified 22 July 2026). KDP prints spine text only on books with more than 79 pages (verified 31 July 2026); allow around 150 for type that stays comfortably legible after its required 0.0625in of clearance on each side.
Cover guide
How this spine width is worked out
A paperback spine is the stacked thickness of its pages, so the width is the page count multiplied by a per-page paper thickness. At 250 pages on white stock that comes to 0.563".
The full-wrap cover is two 5.250" covers plus that spine, which is why the no-bleed width is 11.063". KDP's standard 0.125" bleed then adds a quarter inch to both dimensions, giving the file size you actually upload.
What this book costs to print
On Amazon.com, a 250-page 5.25" × 8" paperback with a black-ink interior costs $4.00 per copy to print — this trim is in KDP's standard band. That sets a price floor of $8.00: below it, a sale would earn a negative royalty and KDP will not accept the price.
At 250 pages the per-page charge applies: KDP's black-ink paperback rate above 110 pages is $1.00 plus $0.012 a page, which is how this book reaches $4.00 per copy. Each further 50 pages adds about $0.60.
Designing a cover for a 250-page 5.25" × 8"
The spine is 0.563" at 250 pages, but the type does not get all of it: KDP wants 0.063" clear on each side, so the usable height is 0.438". 31pt is a comfortable spine — title and author with space between them, and room for a small imprint mark at the foot.
5.25" × 8" is a 1:1.52 page — the classic book proportion, which is what most cover templates assume. The full wrap at 250 pages is 11.313" × 8.250" with bleed, of which the spine takes 5.0% of the width. KDP's barcode block is a fixed 2in × 1.2in whatever the trim, so on this size it claims 6% of the back cover — keep anything that needs reading out of it. KDP offers 5.25" × 8" in paperback only.
Worth knowing before you commit to the size: the same 250-page book at 6" × 9" costs exactly the same $4.00 to print. KDP prices paperbacks by trim CATEGORY and page count, not by area, and both of these are in its standard-size band — so at this length 5.25" × 8" against 6" × 9" is a design decision, not a margin one.
What 5.25" × 8" is for: A slightly roomier alternative to 5 × 8 — fiction that needs marginally wider lines than 5 × 8 allows, and memoirs and essay collections.
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