5 ms·
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 ofte
by jn6118 7mo ago
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 point.
I too used to default to Amazon, as the price was often about 30% cheaper. However, I've come to realise that you get what you pay for. In the UK, I just buy from Waterstones or local bookshops, as then I can trust that it has likely come from the publisher or at least can inspect in advance.
I am never buying a book from Amazon again.
- GeoSys 7mo agoIs there a way to filter out such books when you browse Amazon? They should at least tell you it's an "on-demand" printed book before you order?
- toofy 7mo agoi don’t know of a way. but even if you can, it will almost certainly be done away with. i’m so jaded im sure it would end up like trying to filter out shorts on youtube. click the “show me less of this” only for it to show you more.
- aerhardt 7mo agoI haven't found one, like I mention in the article; I'll edit it if someone proves me wrong. I'm starting to get a feel for a pattern - the books tend to be more expensive, and also take longer on average to deliver (a few weeks, instead of a few days). The latter would be normal for rare editions and some third-party sellers, but if I'm ordering a popular book and it takes longer than usual to deliver I can kinda smell the dead rat. But the only way to know for sure is to open the box in disappointment.
- RobGR 7mo agoI've ordered books that were print-on-demand and had them arrive in 3 days. Some of the Amazon ones will have the exact date in the back, and I can see they were printed the day I ordered it. For what it's worth, I think print-on-demand is a win overall, while there are lots of low quality stuff out there, the ability of small authors to get published and readers to find rarer stuff out weighs that.
- wussboy 7mo agoNot only am I sure there isn't one, I'm sure there will never be one. That might reduce profits for Amazon slightly.
- SilverElfin 7mo agoNot that I can tell. It’s probably an intentional choice, just like how they don’t let you filter by country of origin.
- everybodyknows 7mo agoWhy not just go to a better online seller? One of the books mentioned: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-problems-of-philosophy-warbler-classics-annotated-edition-bertrand-russell/9a1abb58089e8681?ean=9781962572255&next=t https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-problems-of-philosophy-warb...
- georgefrowny 7mo agoIt's also incredibly annoying that Amazon slurped up AbeBooks way back in 2008.
- hkt 7mo agoIt is annoying, but bookshop.org is a good alternative to both Abe and Amazon, presenting a single shop front to lots of bookshops.
- Loughla 7mo agoBetterworldbooks.com is my go to. They usually have everything for decent prices. And you can buy used or new for most things.
- hypercube33 7mo agoI checked all of the sites above in the comment tree here and the used books are either 60% of the price of new or 150% the price of new, but used (not including shipping on the latter, oof) so this may be where buying books used online is now awful. Gone are the days you can pickup a book for a few bucks including shipping from USPS and it'd arrive in pretty good to excellent condition I fear
- KPGv2 7mo agoIsn'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.
- nswango 7mo agobiblio.org is a good alternative where I am (although personally I don't see the problem with having either the print-on-demand books or buying used from Amazon as an option).
- jrmg 7mo agoAlibris (https://www.alibris.com/ 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 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).
- julianeon 7mo agoSomething 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.
- allturtles 7mo agoI can't speak for jn6118, but for me the reason I tend to avoid used books unless there is no other option is the lack of reliable quality standards. Used book listings rarely come with pictures of the actual item being sold, and the same used book listed as "very good" may be nearly brand-new from one seller with minor wear to the dust jacket, and from another have a broken spine, writing inside, discolored pages and an unpleasant odor.
- WillAdams 7mo agoShop at abebooks and limit purchases to those which have photos of the SKU in question.
- randusername 7mo agoI can't recommend ThriftBooks highly enough. I'm a "very good" or "good" but not "acceptable" customer and I've felt the quality was consistent across the probably 30 books I've ordered from them.
- squidbeak 7mo ago> 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.
- dyauspitr 7mo agoBut 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.
- palmotea 7mo ago> But why do print on demand books have to be low quality? Because they're not fabricating any printing plates or using an actual printing press, or any technology that gets you a high quality result. A print on demand book is basically going to come out of an office laser printer, because that's the technology for low-volume printing.
- dyauspitr 7mo agoLaser print quality today is on par with printing plates/offset printing, especially for just text.
- palmotea 7mo ago> Laser print quality today is on par with printing plates/offset printing, especially for just text. Why do you claim that so confidently, when many people say otherwise? Are you just going off some metric like DPI? You're probably missing things like a sibling comment mentioned: "professionally printed books for example use slightly gray letters on creme paper." I don't think you could get "slightly gray" with a laser printer, and print-on-demand seems to basically use bright-white office paper (probably for reasons of laziness and cheapness).
- unmole 7mo ago> professionally printed books for example use slightly gray letters on creme paper." Those people are fetishizing the limitations of offset printing. You simply can't produce sharp blacks comparable to an industrial laser printer with offset printing. > I don't think you could get "slightly gray" with a laser printer You absolutely can. But pure black on Natural Shade (off-white or cream) paper looks much better. Most POD setups use inkjet printers for cost reasons which results in poor print quality.
- GJim 7mo ago> 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.