An issue I have with Amazon these days is with books. Many slightly obscure books these days come print-on-demand rather than from an earlier, larger offset-pri

An issue I have with Amazon these days is with books. Many slightly obscure books these days come print-on-demand rather than from an earlier, larger offset-printing run. I don’t know if the original publishers do this service or if the books are counterfeit too (I remember reading complaints here about low quality copies of books which the commenter thought were counterfeit. Though I’m not so convinced of that) Print on demand means that the book is only printed when (or shortly before) your order comes in. This reduces the risk of not being able to sell all the copies in a larger offset run and of storage but at a higher per-unit printing cost. I typically recognise these books by soft edges on letters (even dots of ink around the letters giving a fuzzy underline) and blurry diagrams. This is particularly bad for small labels or footnotes. I also saw some absolutely awful photographs that looked like they came out of an inkjet printer running low on ink (ie not great resolution and big stripes of off colours running across the image). Another sign is a sparse first page (the one listing information about the publishers and print run), or even a blank first page with a little printers name in the back. The kind of offset printing one normally sees in books leaves much crisper edges (I think the ink is more sticky and more shiny too; perhaps sitting ever so slightly above the page rather than feathered into it). Plates also somehow look much better. I don’t know how they are made. I wish there were a way to know whether or not you’re going to get a print-on-demand book because often the quality is very poor and I’d be willing to invest time looking elsewhere for an offset printed copy. But perhaps I get more print on demand books than I know. Indeed I read that Amazon’s own print on demand service produces very high quality results and if thats true it would probably be a good thing for getting consistent quality books from Amazon. Certainly all the poor quality books I’ve ever gotten were print-on-demand (or digital printing which, as far as I can tell, is basically the same thing).