Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A+ for O'Reilly Customer Service: Keep the books and donate them

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 55 posts

Re: A+ for O'Reilly Customer Service: Keep the books and donate them

#41

Post by franze »

cool story

sadly i can never order another book from them, ever after i made the mistake of ordering and actual reading "Couch DB" http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596155902.do and "The Art of SEO" http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596518875.do front to cover (as i do with 80% of all books i purchase)

It seems like o'reilly is no longer in the book publishing business, but in the business of collecting blogsposts, printing them on paper selling them via their outstanding brand - without any quality assurance of any kind (other than choosing still outstanding cover pics.

additionally i made the mistake of ordering "Data Source Handbook" http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920018254.do via Amazon, paid my $29.99 and only realized in the moment i opened the box, that it actually has 42 pages and no real content. thanks to jeff b. i could return it to amazon.

its very sad what happened to o'reilly - there was a time you could pick-up/buy any oreilly book, read it from front to cover and then know more about the topic than 99.999% of all other humans on this planet - and you had a very good base of actually becoming a real expert on that topic, these days seem now very long ago.

Re: A+ for O'Reilly Customer Service: Keep the books and donate them

#42

Post by Robelius »

spxdcz wrote: post #15

I had the fortune of visiting the O'Reilly offices in Sebastopol a few weeks ago (thanks Mary!), and this gracious attitude permeates the building. It may be one of the happiest, friendliest offices I've had the fortune of visiting. Plus, the Make offices are just incredibly cool - like a real-life Willy Wonka factory, with hundreds of cool half-built gadgets scattered around.

Wow. Thanks for letting me know they are based in Sebastopol. I live 15 minutes from the office. Might try and check it out.

Re: A+ for O'Reilly Customer Service: Keep the books and donate them

#44

Post by gonzo »

kranner wrote: post #17

+1 for O'Reilly Customer Service: when they released The Cathedral and The Bazaar (or was it Free as in Freedom?, can't say for sure), I wrote to them saying that it was funny that a book on free software wasn't itself free to read. They shipped me a free copy and a Python T-shirt (to India). I was in my teens: life-long fan since.

CATB isn't about Freedom, it's about the business model of Open Source

Re: A+ for O'Reilly Customer Service: Keep the books and donate them

#45

Post by dkersten »

Erwin wrote: post #9

I've had the same experience with Amazon, when orders have gone wrong which I think is even more impressive given they're much larger and public. It shows is possible not to put short-term profits first -- some people excuse "evil" acts by companies as being required by shareholders.

I also love Amazon. I once ordered a big bulky heavy hardback book and it didn't arrive, so I emailed them and they replied that if it doesn't arrive after the full 6 weeks that they say to allow has passed, email them again for a replacement. So about a week later, I emailed them again because it still hadn't arrived and hey said "no problem, replacement sent, let us know if the original ever arrives" (it didn't) - the next morning I had my book, they over-night couriered it to me from the US to Ireland. Probably cost more than the book, but I love buying stuff off them ever since.

Re: A+ for O'Reilly Customer Service: Keep the books and donate them

#46

Post by dredmorbius »

franze wrote: post #41

cool story sadly i can never order another book from them, ever after i made the mistake of ordering and actual reading "Couch DB" http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596155902.do and "The Art of SEO" http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596518875.do front to cover (as i do with 80% of all books i purchase) It seems like o'reilly is no longer in the book publishing business, but in the business of collecting blogspost…

ORA was absolute go-to in the early to mid 1990s.

By the dot-com era, quality had slipped notably. There was so much new tech coming out, and so much demand for it, that random titles would come out, several of which were quite slipshod: poorly written, conterfactual, bad examples, etc.

The Beowulf clusters book was a particular low point.

I recall flipping through another via my standard algorithm: table of contents, introductory chapter, skim a few pages elsewhere, index, and I still had absolutely no idea what the technology in question.

The tagline "the last book on X you'll ever need" did stand out, though, and I can vouch for its truthfulness.

There still are good O'Reilly books out there, but they've long since been an automatic buy (and in fact little on paper, real or virtual, is any more).

Re: A+ for O'Reilly Customer Service: Keep the books and donate them

#47

Post by dredmorbius »

mrbill wrote: post #39

"UNIX in a Nutshell" and "Essential System Administration" helped kick-start my career back in '95-96, and I'll always be grateful for that. I was in their "O'Reilly Irregulars" group a few years ago, where folks volunteered to go inventory/catalog the ORA books at their local favorite bookstore, in exchange for a free book or two a month. I also ran banner ads for ORA on a couple of my websites. Marsee and the rest…

UNIX Power Tools as well.

One of the best 'Nix cookbooks ever written.

Re: A+ for O'Reilly Customer Service: Keep the books and donate them

#48

Post by chx »

I do not buy computer books often. I have the Internet :) there are exceptions, of course. One such is SQL and Relational Theory. Not your "learn this in 24hrs" book, that's for sure. More my size, so to speak. Imagine my delight when on Jan 20 I find an email about how I get a 40-50% discount on the 2nd edition for buying the 1st. Nice. And no DRM. Superb nice. I have a strictly Linux environment from phone to servers and DRM'd eBooks are a pain to deal with.

Re: A+ for O'Reilly Customer Service: Keep the books and donate them

#49

Post by mattm »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #32
pasbesoin wrote: post #25

I've had some concern about the quality of some more recent O'Reilly titles. Nonetheless, I've long felt and continue to feel and hope that their heart is in the right place. I've seen this with authors who work very hard to make their primary mission communication and education, without "sweating the small stuff". And I've seen it at the top, with the way Tim has run and cared about the business. It's worked, with m…

Me too. I definitely don't use Safari enough to justify the cost. But the instant access and the rational useful model make so much sense that I really don't mind.

Here's a little tip. Safari Books actually has a 5-slot $9.99/month plan but you can only see it if you are already a member. So just sign up for the free trial and then change your membership over to it. I guess they offer it to people who sign up but then think $28/month is too much.

Re: A+ for O'Reilly Customer Service: Keep the books and donate them

#50

Post by lispython »

I was first so impressed when I saw The O'Reilly Guarantee( http://shop.oreilly.com/category/customer-service/oreilly-gu...), they will give you a full refund for any reason and any time.

They trust their reader and will not suppose them speed readers, while Kindle library will not do the same thing.

Post reply on HN