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The emergence of print-on-demand Amazon paperback books

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

#181

Post by tonyedgecombe »

liendolucas wrote: post #13

I've experienced this. Actually when I received the book from Amazon I thought it was a counterfeit copy, only to discover that on the very last page it says: "Printed by Amazon Logistica Italia S.r.l". Amazon's business shouldn't be printing books and obviously they should state clearly that the book you are purchasing is printed by them. The current solution? Just return the item.

>Amazon's business shouldn't be printing books

Why? There is an argument that they should make it clear a book is printed on demand but I can't see why they shouldn't be in the business of POD.

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

#182

Post by GJim »

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…

> In the UK, I just buy from Waterstones or local bookshops

In Blighty, if you can't buy locally, consider www.hive.co.uk

Hive allows you to donate a cut of the profits to a local independent bookshop of your choice, anywhere in the country.

No connection. Just a satisficed customer.

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

#183

Post by lvales »

stockresearcher wrote: post #165
lvales wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Thanks, I for sure know someone who will be interested in this, I'll be sure to pass it along!

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

#184

Post by tmoertel »

unmole wrote: post #102
dyauspitr wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laser print quality today is on par with printing plates/offset printing, especially for just text.

Hell, with commercial printers from the likes of Konica Minolta, the print quality for text is better than offset print. Most POD presses actually use inkjet because it's less expensive. The result is much lower quality.

> Hell, with commercial printers from the likes of Konica Minolta, the print quality for text is better than offset print.

Can you link to some high-resolution comparison scans to support this claim? I find it hard to believe that any toner-based process is going to result in a cleaner page and crisper text than a properly made-ready offset press run.

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

#185

Post by ansho »

rleigh wrote: post #90
realityfactchex wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this. Even hardcover books from "real publishers" have arrived with low print quality. The most common problem book-printing problems I have a real problem with today are 1. text that is gray (not black) and 2. text that is dotted (not solid) I have, 20, 40, and 100+ year old books with phenomenal "solid black text", and they are an absolute pleasure to feast the eyes on. But more importantly, they are not so ir…

Just for a bit of balance, another book I bought was the ZYNQ book and companion materials. It's made by a university in collaboration with Xilinx. They don't hide that because it's niche and low volume, they used a print-on-demand service. I even went and looked them up, and it's a small UK printer with pretty reasonable pricing for self-publishing small runs of books. The quality was great, no problems with it at a…

Similar experience, have some good quality print-on-demand niche academic books in my collection.

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

#186

Post by ansho »

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.

The problem is that when you need niche books and order them through small local stores it can take months before you get them. Recently got an e-mail that a book I ordered almost a year ago was available for pickup. Not sure why it takes them this long.

Similarly I ordered a spare set of strings for my niche musical instrument through a local music store 4 months ago, have called them at least once a month and it still hasn't arrived. Ordered them online from a German store, it arrived within 5 days. The excuses I've heard are: 1. they forgot to add it to the order 2. they order from many different suppliers and depending on the volume they will "collect" more orders from customers for a single supplier to keep delivery costs down, and for suppliers of niche products this can take a while. 3. It might have arrived at their warehouse but not at the shop. As a musician with concerts planned you can't just keep waiting for spare strings, you need them then and there before the concert.

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

#187

Post by pfdietz »

nottorp wrote: post #9

Isn't paperback basically dead in the US because most sales are digital now? Tbh i've given up on dead tree books with the lone exception of a few hard covers because ... space the final frontier.

Paperbacks have declined for me because of my eyes.

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

#188

Post by pfdietz »

aerhardt wrote: post #95
vzaliva wrote: post #74

I think it is pretty obvious. While Jack London's martin Eden is out of copyright and public domain now, if they order Penguin edition they still have to pay them some money for it. So Amazon calculated that it is cheaper to print their own. My guess they could not do this for non-public-domain books without securing rights first.

But I don’t think Amazon could “pirate” a Penguin edition like that without their consent. Russell’s The Problems of Philosophy is like you say, but they stripped it out of all mentions of a publishing house. I didn’t mind that one in fact

Why do you think Amazon couldn't do that?

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

#190

Post by aerhardt »

pfdietz wrote: post #188
aerhardt wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I don’t think Amazon could “pirate” a Penguin edition like that without their consent. Russell’s The Problems of Philosophy is like you say, but they stripped it out of all mentions of a publishing house. I didn’t mind that one in fact

Why do you think Amazon couldn't do that?

Because Penguin Random House is one of the "Big Five" publishers. I can bet the house that Amazon treats it as a key strategic account within their Books department. They have to deal with them face-to-face regularly. It would be grossly negligent to do this without their consent, not to mention illegal.

It's as if Amazon started selling pirated Nintendo games. Someone from Nintendo would be on their arses in very little time. And while I know very little about the publishing industry, I worked as a PM for Nintendo for four years, and can absolutely guarantee that it would go down like that.

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