It has come to my attention that the wonderful new Kindle Direct Publishing platform is not the reliable print-on-demand (POD) supplier that its predecessor, CreateSpace, was.
I’ve had feedback from two readers that the books they ordered are flawed. Seriously flawed. And I saw a questionable print job on a book that was brought to me for an autograph. That’s three. My stomach is in knots wondering how many other faithful readers purchased a book that is a piece of rubbish. I’m not talking about the typos that appeared in the early copies. Those are on me. I’m talking about the print/binding issues.
The first that caught my eye was printed too high on the page, so the top header was almost clipped at the top of the page and the bottom of the page was swimming in blank space. This is not how my proofs looked. This is not how my first shipment of 20 books looked.
Next I learned that in another book, within the first 157 pages, the recto (right-side) page contained a vertical streak all the way down the page that cut several letters out of words in each line. I have yet to see pictures of that fiasco.
The kicker was this feedback: “My copy of your book has a built in book mark feature. After I read a page, it comes loose from the binding. I have never seen anything like it.” My gentle reader was telling me he’d spent good money on a piece of crap!
Open the flawed book and the page becomes a bookmark.
Page 82 from flawed book, compared to same page in a properly printed book. The outside print margin is obviously wrong.
From the outside the pages of the top (flawed) book are falling out, compared to an unflawed book below it.
PLEASE, Please, pretty please, if you purchased a book from Amazon that has flaws—aside from my pesky typos, please let me know. Knowledge is the weapon I need to wrangle with Amazon’s POD publishing platform for quality control.
Rangewriter 
Wow. Thanks for sharing. Very transparent (although completely not your fault). This is a problem of print run size. In a normal large print run (thousands of copies), the first batch (dozens) are run thru and then chucked as they correct the problems. This clearly is the result of POD system but mostly piss-poor QA. POD seems like buying an inkjet printer. Yeah, you can do it, but publishing (producing a finished product) is a lot more than just the printing. I hope Amazon corrects all these to your standard quickly.
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Between 2012-16 I worked with numerous clients who self published through CreateSpace, which was Amazon’s POD platform. Then about a year ago KindleDirect, Amazon’s e-book enterprise gobbled up CreateSpace. I never heard of or saw any print quality control problems through CreateSpace, so it must be, as you say, quality control on the printing line.
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Ugh, not nice news to receive. Hope the issues are nipped in the bud and all is brought up to standard.Just saw a doc on Amazon and they are shipping daily in the millions.
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I, too hope this gets nipped quickly. I’m hopping mad.
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That must be so frustrating! POD seems great in concept, but obviously not so good in execution. Sorry that you are experiencing these issues.
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It is very frustrating. But the problem is not just POD, the problem is Kindle Direct Publishing. Between 2012-16 I worked with numerous clients who self-published through KDP’s predecessor, CreateSpace. I saw no evidence whatsoever of such crappy Quality Control.
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Wow. Bad stuff. Hope you can get it worked out for your and your buyer’s/customer’s sakes. Sounds terrible.
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Yeah. I’m pissed, Bob. I’ll be looking for some other POD choices. As soon as I have time to do some decent research. My confidence in the Amazon thing is gone. Trouble is, the sales channel is so easy with them.
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🤬 Really, no excuse for this (the stuff that’s not your fault, I mean). I hope every other writer who has experienced this is also red hot mad and complaining to them.
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I did find a few complaints about CQ, however, not as many as I would expect, nor were they as indignant as I feel. I’m waiting to find out if there are other issues. I suspect they will simply offer me a free book for whatever defective ones I send back, but how do I know how many are floating around out there. Not everyone feels comfortable contacting the author about stuff like that. Grrrrr.
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If you can alter the text (it’s POD, so I’d think yes), could you add a note at the front of the book to contact you or Amazon customer service in case of printing errors?
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Excellent idea, Brien. Thanks.
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Over the years I have had several POD runs done by Amazon. I have never had any problems even though print runs have been as as little as 10 copies.
My complaints is the cost of shipping to Australia. Outrageously expensive!
Amazingly, in latest shipment a big spelling error had been corrected on the back cover. It had ‘mondane’ instead of mundane.
The sale of my books have been dismal but I still get a kick out of it when I do sell a copy sometimes.
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I wonder if, as Brien alluded, the problem occurs when books are truly print on-demand, one at a time. Maybe they’re more careful with a larger order. But that’s not good enough.
So who corrected Mondane? You or someone at Amazon? It is a bit of a thrill when a book sells. Even more so when a positive review comes in.
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Do hope you can get this sorted asap.
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Thisis not good, wish you can get this sorted out. For photobooks I had a positive experience through Blurb.com.
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Robert did you have a printed product through blurb.com?
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That is not a good ‘feeling’ – to trust based on a company’s history, and then the quality control is changed/but the client does not know… I hope that by now the problems are solved.
I’ve been hesitant to put my designs on products for sale (clothing,shower curtains, etc) for that very reason – I’d want to test them all first before letting the public know of that option… and down here it’s not possible for me to easily do that… Ditto for prints of art – how could anyone except the artist proof the reproductions unless the original is ‘in hand’ at the place where the prints are made?
Ah, if only we could all ‘get by’ by our core values – good people advance, and cheaters/manipulators go to the rear….
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Yes I can se how quality control would be especially tricky with products and textiles.
I haven’t yet dealt with KindleDirect. Net to get my ducks in a row, but I’ve been on the run lately. In a good way. Not complaining.
It’s always such a treat to hear from you Lisa.
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