Tell HN: Books Printed by Amazon • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: Books Printed by Amazon

#41

Post by jjice » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 2:04 PM UTC

lasermatts wrote: post #40

I self-published a book on gardening and learned how much I enjoy the design/marketing/sales aspect of the self-publish industry almost as much as I enjoy writing. Something I learned quickly is that local bookstores & libraries will often refuse to carry books that are Print-on-Demand from Amazon. There are several other POD suppliers online and it’s really cool to compare the features and cost models across each su…

So would you stick with Amazon in this case or lean towards another POD publisher like Lulu or others?

Re: Tell HN: Books Printed by Amazon

#42

Post by jjice » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 2:06 PM UTC

lastangryman wrote: post #16

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.

Oh man I wish I could buy more from a book store. The selection is always so bare around me and there is never a single software book in sight, which are the kind of books I read most often. Ebay ends up being the champion for me.

Re: Tell HN: Books Printed by Amazon

#43

Post by thesuitonym » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 2:07 PM UTC

factorymoo wrote: post #30

I worked for Amazon for two years. They always were very proud of their customer obsession and in some ways it really showed (great customer service, very speedy deliveries). But what I never understood is how it never seemed to be a problem that over the years, the site is just filled with low quality / alibaba imports / bad products. On a side note, the number of vendors that offer you to remove a bad review in exc…

It's past time to stop recommending Reddit, not because of the recent shenanigans, but because it's already been a few years at least that Reddit has been filled with marketing spam, fake accounts, and astroturfing.

Re: Tell HN: Books Printed by Amazon

#44

Post by voakbasda » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 2:10 PM UTC

abyssin wrote: post #12

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.

Maybe their strategy now involves degrading the print experience sufficiently that people start thinking their Kindles are the superior experience.

First they came for the bookstores, then they came for the publishers….

Re: Tell HN: Books Printed by Amazon

#45

Post by jjice » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 2:13 PM UTC

I've had a mixed outcome from Amazon POD. On one hand, I've gotten great quality books that wouldn't be available due to being old and not worth stocking or from small authors that wouldn't have the resources. On the other hand, I've gotten some real trash (physical quality, I can't blame them for content quality).

I think it may be based on the author to choose what they want the quality of the cover and pages to be, at a higher book price. I bought a book that an old coworker had written (not good, very much a cash grab short book, but I was interested in POD), and the cover was an awful matte finish with really low quality pages and print quality.

I've also gotten some good quality books from them, but they're always more expensive, so I bet there's some opt-in quality tradeoffs to be made by the original publisher/author.

Re: Tell HN: Books Printed by Amazon

#46

Post by layer8 » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 2:57 PM UTC

icoder wrote: post #13

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.

You’re vastly underestimating the complexity, variety, and idiosyncrasy of tools and formats used by publishers.

Re: Tell HN: Books Printed by Amazon

#47

Post by ljm » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 3:30 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #22

lastangryman wrote: post #16

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.

> Buy from a book shop. Authors use on-demand printing from Amazon because ordering a full print run is significantly more expensive, and due to lack of demand they'd never be able to recover the costs. These kinds of books aren't promoted by a top publisher and don't have shelf space at your local bookstore. Chances are if it weren't for Amazon they wouldn't be available for purchase at all. People don't seem to rea…

The books themselves feel a bit flimsy though, compared to well-printed books that have a sturdier feel. They still cost £30+ each and the quality of the finished product doesn't really match up with the price. And we're not just talking about indie self-publishers, I've noticed a drop in print quality from PragProg, Packt and O'Reilly too. For a while I thought this was just Amazon shipping shit quality material until Waterstones and Bookshop were sending them too.

The lower barrier to entry for self-publishing is not an excuse for a race to the bottom on quality. I can't imagine many of these books surviving as long as, say, my battered copy of K&R C.

Re: Tell HN: Books Printed by Amazon

#48

Post by Finnucane » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 3:34 PM UTC

diamondap wrote: post #31

To all you folks complaining about the quality of POD books, you should know that the book designer has a lot to do with the book's readability. Many self-published authors who design their own interiors choose bad fonts out of ignorance, or make the font too small to reduce page count and cost. Print design is really an art. The big publishers take it seriously, and some self-published authors do as well. As for blu…

For our backlist, the titles most likely going to POD are old enough that sometimes all we have work from are scans of the physical copies. Our back catalog goes back quite a long ways. POD quality still varies a lot, though short run digital printing has improved significantly in the past decade or so.

Re: Tell HN: Books Printed by Amazon

#49

Post by ljm » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 3:38 PM UTC

quest88 wrote: post #34

rocketbop wrote: post #32

Ah this makes so much sense! I bought a book on Amazon Germany last year, 1000 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think, and as soon as I opened it I had a feeling it was a pirate copy. I even tried to find the book in a physical book store so I could compare, but didn't find it. Just took it down from the shelf and went to the back page, and yes it's printed in Poland by Amazon Fulfillment. I suspected it because t…

> the book was rubbish anyway. Why is it still on your shelf then :)

You need a few stinkers on your shelf to offset any suspicion that you don't actually read your books and just buy the ones that make you look intellectual from the background of your video call.

Re: Tell HN: Books Printed by Amazon

#50

Post by beej71 » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 3:38 PM UTC

diamondap wrote: post #31

To all you folks complaining about the quality of POD books, you should know that the book designer has a lot to do with the book's readability. Many self-published authors who design their own interiors choose bad fonts out of ignorance, or make the font too small to reduce page count and cost. Print design is really an art. The big publishers take it seriously, and some self-published authors do as well. As for blu…

Seconded. The pod books I have printed at Amazon look exactly like the pdf and cover art I submitted. I worked hard to follow their specifications.

Material quality felt "fine" to me, but haven't really done an analysis.