Kindle eBook vs KDP eBook?

[what]

I'm trying to prepare an EPUB to publish on Amazon, but their contradictory specifications are confusing me.

In the guide on how to Create an eBook Cover, Amazon asks you not to include a cover image in the file that you submit to them:

When you publish or re-publish your Kindle eBook, we'll automatically add your cover image to the inside. Do not include your cover image in your manuscript file.

In the Cover Image Guidelines, on the other hand, Amazon seems to imply that your submitted file should contain a cover image:

Kindle eBooks must have an internal cover image provided for use within the book content.

But then at the bottom of that page it says:

This cover image guidance doesn't apply to KDP eBooks. If you're using KDP, follow the KDP guidelines for cover images.

And this is confusing me completely! What is the difference between a Kindle eBook and a KDP eBook? And should the EPUB that I upload to Amazon have an internal cover image or not?

[Notjohn]

Ignore the instructions for an internal cover image. Indeed, KDP is so anxious to eliminate the included cover that I had to move the frontispiece of two books forward a couple pages to prevent their being suppressed.

Amazon's "help" pages are full of little idiocies like that.

[what]

@Notjohn, when you say that I should

Originally Posted by Notjohn

Ignore the instructions for an internal cover image

do you mean that I should ignore and not include a cover or ignore and include a cover?

[Quoth]

It's the separately uploaded cover that KDP uses. Typically I use 2144 x 2860 for epub2 upload to KDP. The dpi is meaningless as a screen can be 4" to 19" (a Kindle app), or 6" at two resolutions for smaller Kindles.

Paper uses 300 dpi MINIMUM, and can use more. For paper you separately upload the correct size for the physical size of cover, at 300 dpi, typically. Though you might use 400 dpi. Depends who is doing the POD. Also I'd not use ANYONE'S cover creator. When you upload a PDF for POD paper, or even a print run, the company should tell you the over all front, spine and back dimension based on number of pages and paper thickness and you upload a single image for that. You decide on a paper print size before PDF creation.

Amazon recently launched the idea of creating the paper edition and ebook from one upload. It's crazy. Paper books have headers, footers, different margin rules, different needs for internal images. Often different front and rear matter. Possibly different fonts not suitable in an ebook.

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by what

@Notjohn, when you say that I should

do you mean that I should ignore and not include a cover or ignore and include a cover?

Oops, sorry! I meant DO NOT include a cover in your text file when you upload the ebook to the KDP platform. I'm amazed that such an instruction actually appears in the help pages, but I'm not surprised, since a lot of weird stuff does.

I first build an epub called whateverD2D.epub for uploading to any other platform than Amazon. (I use Draft2Digital for most of them.) Then I delete the cover.xhtml file and the actual cover image in the Images folder, and I save that as whateverKDP.epub.