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Print on Demand quality issues | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Bookstores |  | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6136 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 1 of 5 28 June 2012 at 4:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Unfortunately for us language learners, language books don't tend to be big sellers. This has meant more publishers have started using print on demand services. Amazon are now insisting they get printing rights for infrequent or low selling material. This has meant that some of my purchases this year are of sub-standard quality.
My first encounter with print on demand was Routledge's Frequency Dictionary of Spanish. The quality of the print is so bad it's barely usable. I picked up the frequency dictionaries for French and Czech in a shop, and they're much better. The second book I got was Cambridge's Using French. This book was printed by Amazon and the type was very poor. I sent it back straight away. In the same order I also got Using French Vocabulary which was much better, but it was printed by Cambridge Press themselves. Has anyone recently received print on demand material and was the quality reasonable ? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4696 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 2 of 5 30 June 2012 at 3:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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If you can get the information in a pdf, you could maybe try printing and binding at Kinko's?
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 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6364 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 5 30 June 2012 at 3:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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Can you tell that it's print on demand before buying? I looked at the Frequency Dictionary of Spanish page and don't see any indication that it is printed on demand.
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| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6136 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 4 of 5 02 July 2012 at 4:49pm | IP Logged | ||
No. I only found out when I went to re-order it in a bookshop. They told me it could take up to eight weeks since it was print on demand. I think Amazon have made it hard to identify when a title is P.O.D as they're now doing the printing. My only clue is if the book has a detailed preview. This might mean Amazon have the original source files. Edited by DaraghM on 02 July 2012 at 4:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sipes23 Diglot Senior Member United States pluteopleno.com/wprs Joined 4855 days ago 134 posts - 235 votes Speaks: English*, Latin Studies: Spanish, Ancient Greek, Persian | Message 5 of 5 03 July 2012 at 4:26am | IP Logged | ||
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The issue with POD books is the same old story: garbage in, garbage out.
It sounds like some of these are made from cruddy scans of old books. Of course, this leads to a terrible book. Clean digital text in, much better results. Bad typesetting can also ruin a book just as easily, but I digress. I've bought a few POD books from Amazon and have been pleased with them overall. The worst thing I can say is that the lamination doesn't stick to the cover as well as with traditional books, but that's pretty minor. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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