The emergence of print-on-demand Amazon paperback books • Hacker News Board

Re: The emergence of print-on-demand Amazon paperback books

#161

Post by abound » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 3:17 PM UTC

chocochunks wrote: post #135

1313ed01 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was happy a few years ago when I found a site selling DRM-free EPUBs on many topics I am interested in, but with no prior warning last week they sent out an email saying they no longer do that and instead you have to buy and read books through some special app. They could at least have warned a few days in advance. I would have stocked up on several lifetimes of books to read. A bit skeptic about post-2022 books an…

It's not very hard to remove the DRM from Kobo or Google Play Books.

For reference for Kobo in particular: https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools

I recently threw an LLM at it to turn the Obok plugin into a statically linked CLI in Rust, it works great.

Re: The emergence of print-on-demand Amazon paperback books

#162

Post by zparky » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 3:36 PM UTC

jrmg wrote: post #151

georgefrowny wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also incredibly annoying that Amazon slurped up AbeBooks way back in 2008.

Alibris ( https://www.alibris.com/ ) is a great alternative. I do basically all my book buying there. If anyone’s concerned about the condition of used books, I’ve found their condition descriptions ( https://www.alibris.com/popups/glossary/book-condition ) to be reliable (indeed, books are often in better condition than indicated - I’ll happily order anything ‘fair’ or above).

I love alibris

Re: The emergence of print-on-demand Amazon paperback books

#163

Post by squidbeak » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 3:54 PM UTC

julianeon wrote: post #84

jn6118 wrote: post #2

This article really resonates with me and I'm somewhat relieved to see someone else feels the same way. I love physical books for general reading and will often buy both physical and ebook format for technical books to get the best of both worlds. I now cannot stand print-on-demand books and, like the author, I can spot them very quickly. The quality is abysmal, and I might as well be printing them myself at that poi…

Something I don't understand: Why don't you buy used books? Plenty of supply for a book like the one he mentions, Knut Hamsun's "Growth of the Soil." No question that it was made to the quality level of the time when it was published; early 2000's is probably peak. I understand some books are so new they won't have any used copies. But for everything else, there's an endless buffet to choose from.

> Something I don't understand: Why don't you buy used books?

To me this is like asking what's wrong with buying used underwear. You don't know anything about the paws that have thumbed those pages. I had a flatmate in my early twenties who would kick off every reading session by scratching his bottom - and then as he read, he'd sniff his fingertips as a focus aid. I am not kidding. But even if the previous owners haven't had repulsive habits, people still sweat, cough and sneeze, rummage obliviously, read naked with their books in their laps, or in their partners laps, put their books down to please their partners then pick them back up - do I need to go on? We have intimate relationships with books, and a second hand book has all the detritus of an intimate relationship with its previous owner. Then there's the yeasts, molds, mildews, weird stains - anything humidity, cooking smells, damp, rotten trash, dense flatulence, halitosis, disease etc has impregnated the pages with. There's nothing noble or romantic about that aggregate odor they all develop.

A better way of thinking about them is that they're like semi-digested bites covered in the dried belly juices of whoever hawked them back up. How hungry do you need to be? It's no different really to dogs tucking into vomit in the street. Each to his own, though.

Re: The emergence of print-on-demand Amazon paperback books

#164

Post by hirako2000 » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 5:08 PM UTC

> Wouldn’t it be better for all sides if Amazon at least informed us that a book will be printed on demand and allowed us to make a decision before buying?

Better for all sides if a majority of buyers systematically returned them. Given the typical consumer doesn't even know what print on demand means, it is better for Amazon to keep it that way.

Re: The emergence of print-on-demand Amazon paperback books

#165

Post by stockresearcher » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 5:49 PM UTC

lvales wrote: post #109

decimalenough wrote: post #82

The blame is somewhat misguided: what's blame to here is cost-cutting, not printing on demand. If you're willing to pay, you can get POD books that, certainly to the untrained enough, are indistinguishable from "real" books. For example, Lulu's hardcover books with linen wrap, dust jacket, "premium" B&W printing with 60# uncoated cream look pretty darn good: https://www.lulu.com/pricing

Yeah, I'm leaning towards that conclusion as well. While I don't publish my writings, I have a few friends who do. The stuff that comes from Lulu, even the cheapest "models", is honestly fine. The ones from Amazon, not so much. Of course if you typeset and edit your book like a moron, that's going to impact the quality, but this has nothing to do with POD.

I have to recommend the following:

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo213648...

Fewer and fewer books get this treatment by experienced professionals and it is often left to the author to do this work. This is really a great resource!

Re: The emergence of print-on-demand Amazon paperback books

#166

Post by starkparker » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 6:16 PM UTC

telefun5463 wrote: post #149

As a French reader, from a small city with multiple independent book shops: The simplest fix wouldn't be to just stop buying from Amazon ? Independent bookstores and used book sellers solve every problem in this article, often at better prices. They also deserve the support. Reading "elevates minds", but the shops, publishers, and supply chains don't sustain themselves on good vibes alone.

> a small city with multiple independent book shops

That's a colossal benefit that you should treasure for as long as it lasts.

Re: The emergence of print-on-demand Amazon paperback books

#167

Post by aerhardt » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 7:09 PM UTC

decimalenough wrote: post #82

The blame is somewhat misguided: what's blame to here is cost-cutting, not printing on demand. If you're willing to pay, you can get POD books that, certainly to the untrained enough, are indistinguishable from "real" books. For example, Lulu's hardcover books with linen wrap, dust jacket, "premium" B&W printing with 60# uncoated cream look pretty darn good: https://www.lulu.com/pricing

Hi author here. I've bought a probability textbook from Lulu and it was fine. I don't blame POD but rather misinformation and poor quality. Almost all the POD books I've received from Amazon are very distinguishable from real books.

Re: The emergence of print-on-demand Amazon paperback books

#168

Post by Blackstrat » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 7:10 PM UTC

There's far less to recommend Amazon than there once was. Service quality has dropped. Their recommendation engine was better 10 years ago than it is today, e.g,. recommending an item I've already bought or items in my cart isn't a recommendation. Using the USPS for final delivery doesn't help as "Prime Delivery" can now take a week or more to arrive here. And then the postal worker will do everything in their power to cram the book in the mailbox. I've returned about half of the books that I've ordered in the last year. Consequently, I've been ordering more through the local B&N and picking it up in store. There I can see the quality and condition before deciding to keep. And I wish poor quality book publishing was limited to Amazon. It's not. I ordered a new copy of Apostol Calculus direct from Wiley. It was expensive ($300+). It turned out to be print on demand as well and of such poor quality that many equations were illegible. It was "new" but unusable and I was able to find a used copy in fine shape. Fundamentally, in my view, publishers are killing the book industry. Eliminating mass market paperback drove up the price of trade paper as well as digital. Consequently, many books become "unaffordable" from a demand perspective, i.e., many of us are unlikely to throw away $25+ for a causal airplane read. We'll acquire it used later, or borrow it from the library, if we bother to read it at all. Further, with younger generations reading physical books far less often than their parents or grandparents, they've initiated a feedback loop that doesn't end well for the industry. Amazon doesn't care. Books aren't their driver anymore. So the reader draws the short straw.

Re: The emergence of print-on-demand Amazon paperback books

#169

Post by aerhardt » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 7:14 PM UTC

camillomiller wrote: post #107

The original title is "the enshittification of". why has it been editorialized to make it less effective?

I don't know, the HN mods changed it, but I stand by my original title. If we're being finicky, one could argue that it's the book buying experience that has been enshittified, but otherwise it's a textbook case (no pun intended).

Re: The emergence of print-on-demand Amazon paperback books

#170

Post by notepad0x90 » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 7:14 PM UTC

aerhardt wrote: post #92

notepad0x90 wrote: post #85

I was excited when I opened this post, but apparently the author is complaining about this? Here is a comment I made few months ago complaining about why this isn't a thing already: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46219555 I kept getting disappointed when authors I liked were printing kindle-only or digital only books and short stories, that I would gladly pay extra for the cost of printing. I have no interest i…

I tend to buy hardcovers but sometimes it’s not possible. I agree it’s a sure-fire way to avoid print-on-demand. Like I say in the article, I don’t mind about print-on-demand as such - it’s the fact that these books are not particularly rare, they often come with bad defects, and they are pretty pricey.

it would be nice if they told you that's what it was before you purchase it, that I agree with. I think they do it this way because if it takes too long to ship it, you might not buy it, plus with one purchase, there is usually more. I may have gotten one of those books, but I wouldn't know since I'm one of those people that doesn't care all that much for paperpack, all the books I value I try to get them in hard-cover.