Every week we inherit ebook files that were rejected by Apple Books or flagged by Kindle Previewer. The pattern is remarkably consistent: it is almost never the content, and almost always the construction.
The five failures we see most
First: invalid or missing metadata — titles that don't match store listings, absent language declarations, broken ISBN references. Second: cover images that are too small or embedded incorrectly. Third: fonts embedded without licences or subsetting. Fourth: broken internal navigation, especially landmark elements that point nowhere. Fifth: fixed-layout books exported straight from InDesign with no manual cleanup.
The fix is boring — and that's the point
Passing review first time is not a matter of talent; it is a matter of checklists. We validate every file against EPUBCheck, test on real devices in the four major reading apps, and review metadata against the store listing before submission. That discipline is why our submissions pass on the first attempt.
If your book has been rejected and you can't decode the report, send it to us — diagnosing a failed file usually takes us under an hour.
Working on something like this?
We give the same advice to clients — backed by a fixed quote and a delivery date.
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