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Tell HN: Books Printed by Amazon

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Re: Tell HN: Books Printed by Amazon

#11

Post by 4ndrewl »

mocko wrote: post #2

Amazon has had a print-on-demand service [1] for a while so the real question is whether major publishers have been signing deals to use it. Maybe from their perspective it's worthwhile for older books, to avoid maintaining lots of slow-moving inventory? [1] https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/GHKDSCW2KQ3K4UU4

Yes - speaking with ex-colleagues now at AWS this sort of thing is exactly what happens. Finite resource is warehouse space, so use that on the popular inventory and allow publishers to POD.

Re: Tell HN: Books Printed by Amazon

#12

Post by abyssin »

huhtenberg wrote: post #6

> They are of decent quality I got two and they were absolute shit. So much so that it was the first time ever I actually returned something to Amazon. From blurred cover "art" stretched from what looked like 30dpi image to godawful sans-serif font in humongous size with line spacing so tight some characters ascenders and descenders overlapped. Made my eyes bleed. Even if they paid me to read this, it still would've…

I had a similar experience. Transparent paper with glossy ink that made looking at images not enjoyable, visible pixels in the text. I don't care about the ugly cover but the reading experience was in some ways inferior to an e-ink device, while it should be the opposite.

Re: Tell HN: Books Printed by Amazon

#13

Post by icoder »

xn wrote: post #7

I bought two Springer books from Amazon that turned out to be print-on-demand. The font size and weight made them uncomfortable to read so I returned them. I bought another self-published book that was also print-on-demand. The larger font size made it readable although the font weight makes the footnotes look quite bad. I wish Amazon would show on the product listing that it's a print-on-demand book since they're in…

Kind of odd that it's a different font, if they'd work closely with the publishers there would be no need for that just take the closest paper size available on-demand, adjust the margins accordingly and otherwise print it exactly as it was intended.

Re: Tell HN: Books Printed by Amazon

#14

Post by icoder »

onion2k wrote: post #10

I've got a few. They're not quite as nice as 'proper' books, but the reduction in having to transport and store books before they're sold, and the fact that it means Amazon can have a much bigger inventory, means I'm fine with them. I can deal with having a lower quality book if it means I can get the book I want. The only real downside is that I'm very reluctant to buy someone else a book as a gift from Amazon. I'll…

If you extrapolate those criteria further; less nice, less transport and storage and more inventory you end up with e-books. But I absolutely understand that your personal preference is somewhere in the middle (while mine is at the end).

Re: Tell HN: Books Printed by Amazon

#15

Post by Semaphor »

Yeah, recently got one as well, the reviews had a picture of what I actually wanted, the product I got was PoD (this was a collection of Lovecraft stories, so public domain). Started a return, and Amazon just refunded and told me to keep the book …

FWIW, it’s not horrible, it’s a hard cover and not horrible in quality, just not what I wanted.

In the end, I got what I wanted on eBay classifieds for barely more than the amazon book, and less than what the big book stores with 3 weeks + delivery times wanted. Not technically new, but undistinguishable.

Re: Tell HN: Books Printed by Amazon

#16

Post by lastangryman »

This makes me hyper sad. Seems Amazon are just making things worse with everything they do. Ever tried to buy something like a USB hub or charge cable off Amazon? Endless suspect brands you've never heard of with poor quality. Now they are normalising books with blurry cover art and hard to read text due to budget printing?

Buy from a book shop.

Re: Tell HN: Books Printed by Amazon

#18

Post by bowsamic »

icoder wrote: post #14
onion2k wrote: post #10

I've got a few. They're not quite as nice as 'proper' books, but the reduction in having to transport and store books before they're sold, and the fact that it means Amazon can have a much bigger inventory, means I'm fine with them. I can deal with having a lower quality book if it means I can get the book I want. The only real downside is that I'm very reluctant to buy someone else a book as a gift from Amazon. I'll…

If you extrapolate those criteria further; less nice, less transport and storage and more inventory you end up with e-books. But I absolutely understand that your personal preference is somewhere in the middle (while mine is at the end).

There are many kinds of books that are very difficult to read as ebooks

Re: Tell HN: Books Printed by Amazon

#19

Post by slugboy »

xn wrote: post #7

I bought two Springer books from Amazon that turned out to be print-on-demand. The font size and weight made them uncomfortable to read so I returned them. I bought another self-published book that was also print-on-demand. The larger font size made it readable although the font weight makes the footnotes look quite bad. I wish Amazon would show on the product listing that it's a print-on-demand book since they're in…

Unfortunately, nowadays, even books bought directly from Springer are print-on-demand (PoD). This isn't so bad for paperbacks, but the hardcovers tend to be glued and have very stiff spines which make the books difficult to keep open (though this has improved of late).

Compare with the older Springer-produced PoD hardcovers that were Smyth-sewn and of very high quality.

Re: Tell HN: Books Printed by Amazon

#20

Post by atlasunshrugged »

diamondap wrote: post #4
mocko wrote: post #2

Amazon has had a print-on-demand service [1] for a while so the real question is whether major publishers have been signing deals to use it. Maybe from their perspective it's worthwhile for older books, to avoid maintaining lots of slow-moving inventory? [1] https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/GHKDSCW2KQ3K4UU4

I think this is right. Some book stores in the US even have print-on-demand machines inside the shop. See https://www.ondemandbooks.com/ for more info about the printers. Most publishers make good money on their backlists, with a slow trickle of sales across a huge number of titles. Amazon and other stores don't always want to stock these titles because they take up a lot of shelf space. Publishers may not want to pu…

diamondap -- I see that you're an author yourself, do you know much about how the industry functions on the publisher side? I'm trying to learn more about the space (both out of personal curiosity as I've been working on a book myself and because the more I learn the more I'm interested in building something in the industry).

If you're willing to chat, happy to ping you through your website!

Edit: I see on your personal website you also have a publishing co, would love to get your insight

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