Are Amazon KDP author copies cooked 💀

I just received my first author copy of my debut novel in paperback (still waiting on hardcover because I missed the memo that author copies take forever to ship), and it’s in pretty unsatisfactory condition compared to my earlier proof copies, which had looked great.

As you can see from the pics, the front cover is misaligned at the bottom (note the blank white strip), and the top spine is dinged. An indie author friend mentioned offhandedly that this is part of the pain of author copies… So, is this pretty typical for author copies from Amazon? And does that mean that our readers who order from Amazon will at least be more likely to get their books in good condition?

I’m also rather frustrated, because I’d ordered an author copy to be shipped to one of my beta readers as a promised thank-you gift, with the plan of mailing her a signed bookplate and small goodies separately…and I was going to order more author copies for myself to do the same for others.* So now I’m concerned over what condition these books will be in.

Those of you who have used Amazon KDP and ordered author copies as well as had readers buy through there, what has been your experience? I’m wondering what to do and if I will need to do any damage control…

*Also, a side observation that while the back end of KDP claimed I could ship author copies internationally via other storefronts (as I intended to do for a UK beta reader), I repeatedly ran into errors during checkout while trying to do so.