Trouble with file size formatting

[alhawke]

I'm planning a price drop for one of my books. It's 1.4mb but after Amazon conversion it's 0.59mb. I'm worried because I need to drop the price to $0.99. I can price match it if Amazon doesn't comply, but I'm wondering if I should do anything else to compress it? Amazon wants books to be 0.3mb for $0.99 pricing.

I played around with dropping the mb but the weird thing is Amazon converts it to a high mb anyway ??? I was able to cut the file in half from 1.4mb to 0.7 but it dropped it only from 0.6mb to 0.59mb! 
I think price matching might be the best option.  . Any suggestions?

[Lynn]

Upload with a small cover image or no cover image. Let Amazon replace it. Their system does that anyway, I believe, if you upload a file with a cover, stripping out your cover and replacing it.

(I always upload an epub with a cover included and I've never had a duplicate cover appear.)

[alhawke]

They'll replace the cover if you don't add one? That's interesting. Thanks! I might just try that.

What I've done so far is drop the resolution and size of the original cover and map. The problem, I think, is mostly the map I added. It's fairly low resolution though at 2.4mb. Anyway, like I said before, the weird thing is that even dropping down mb of my file causes almost no change after Amazon transfers it (0.6 to 0.59. for a file reduced in half! That's bizarre).

But I'm gonna see if the system takes what I sent and price drops it as is. Otherwise I might really muck up the system. I changed around the back matter and I fear if I keep altering the files before it updates I'm really going to mess up the AI.

A third option is to compress the file further. Anyone ever done that? I'm worried it could cause some sort of unforeseen problem for readers.

[Lynn]

How big is the map? Do you have it sized small enough for most screens anyway?

There's no reason to have a really large map in an ebook because it will be wasted in e-ink displays and on phones. The only place it will be nice to have a decent resolution is for a person reading on a good tablet.

You're not going to get many people reading on a computer screen where large resolution will matter.

(I would resize instead of compress it to a lower quality if at all possible.)

[Jeff Tanyard]

I'm worried because I need to drop the price to $0.99. I can price match it if Amazon doesn't comply...

Are you trying to price-match a book that's currently in the 70% royalty bracket to a non-zero price in the 35% bracket?  If so, then I'd advise against it.  This is the sort of thing the scammers were doing back in the day, and Amazon really frowned on it then, and I suspect they still do.

Amazon wants books to be 0.3mb for $0.99 pricing.

You're off by an order of magnitude.  It's 3 megabytes, not 0.3.

https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200634560


ETA:  You don't need to do any fiddling with the file size or file content.  You're good, so just go ahead and change the price manually in your dashboard.

[alhawke]

No, I'm selling it at 35%
You're totally right. My brain didn't catch the decimal, I suppose. 
Lots of re-formatting this morning for nothing.

[Lynn]

No, I'm selling it at 35%
You're totally right. My brain didn't catch the decimal, I suppose. 
Lots of re-formatting this morning for nothing.

I never even noticed so you aren't the only one :D My excuse is that I haven't ever priced anything at .99 so I didn't think about it too hard. But now, I feel silly, because I know how small .3 mb is. LOL.