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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

#81

Post by hkt »

georgefrowny wrote: post #14
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…

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

It is annoying, but bookshop.org is a good alternative to both Abe and Amazon, presenting a single shop front to lots of bookshops.

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

#82

Post by decimalenough »

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

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

#83

Post by KPGv2 »

georgefrowny wrote: post #14
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…

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

Isn't AbeBooks for collecting old books? That's what I use it for. Abebooks and eBay. lots of out of print vintage niche books that way, like early JA->EN translations of novellas.

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

#84

Post by julianeon »

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.

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

#85

Post by notepad0x90 »

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 in spending what extra time I have in front of a screen. I've tried getting into it, it's just too distracting. Even on a kindle with no network access, it isn't convenient to switch between pages, it feels too much like scrolling on my phone.

The authors says enshittification, but I don't get it, you can still buy original copies. hardcover is the go-to if you want something more authentic, no one is printing those on demand. Pay for those, and let the authors make more money too that way. When I buy paperback, I don't care about all that, so long as the font, page size and other qualities are good (a nice cover won't hurt either).

For some books, they haven't had a publication in too long, and there are no used copies for sale on Amazon, I'd be very glad to get on-demand printed versions.

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

#86

Post by sentientslug »

cyclopeanutopia wrote: post #71

I'm buying ungodly numbers of books and I'd say more than half of what I get from Amazon is PoD, and print quality varies. In my country (Poland) they have one huge advantage: the price. It's quite often somewhere between 30%-50% cheaper than alternatives which is significant given book prices. One thing that is pretty annoying is when a PoD book that had colors in the original no longer has them, e.g. on charts, but…

What are you buying ungodly numbers of books for? To read them?

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

#87

Post by dangus »

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.

Readers in the US still overall have a preference for physical books: https://www.tonerbuzz.com/blog/paper-books-vs-ebooks-statist...

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

#88

Post by dyauspitr »

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…

But why do print on demand books have to be low quality? It’s actually a pretty genius idea. You order a book, an automated machine prints out a high quality book indistinguishable from a regular paperback, pops it into a box and it’s ready for shipping. You could probably print one in under 5 minutes, no fees to store the books, you could have 10 times the “published” authors.

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

#89

Post by Foobar8568 »

nbernard wrote: post #30
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.

> The current solution? Just return the item. Yes, and write a low stars review explaining the problem. Returns alone don't hurt future sales of identical items.

And Amazon will not publish your review.

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

#90

Post by rleigh »

realityfactchex wrote: post #69
rleigh wrote: post #24

It's not just Amazon. I bought a copy of an ARM assembly book from a proper bookseller (Blackwells) which was a proper hardback for a high price--something like £80, and I received a print-on-demand mess with a hardcover. The print was there but barely legible, a dotty mess which gave me a headache. I returned it. I can see print-on-demand working very well, but not until the quality issues are sorted out. Being char…

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 all. So it /can/ be done.
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