Print On Demand Books

[EddieB]

I've seen various "print on demand" books come up in response to searches, mainly on Abebooks, occasionally it seems like a great idea where the subject matter is obscure or derived from long out of print sources.

 

However, I've recently found a couple of items listed on Amazon, and I'm staggered by the cost (in view of the size of the publication) and that they are touted as based on Wikipaedia articles (is that a recommendation?):

 

http://www.amazon.co...91208291&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.co...91209384&sr=1-1

 

I'm intrigued to know just what's in them, but not prepared to throw hard-earned cash at something which looks little more than a rehash of information essentially available with free access - and not in any way comprehensive at that!

[ian]

Looking at the covers that's the first time that I've seen 'high quality content' and 'Wikipedia' in the same sentence without a negative between them

[spamcan61]

I can't find a quick way of finding prices now the site's more complex than it used to be, but from previous investigation I found pricing tended to be in the 20 to 30 quid bracket for that sort of book using lulu.com, so price on Amazon looks reasonable in that sense. Whether the contents justify the price is another matter of course.

 

http://www.lulu.com/uk/publish/index.php?cid=en_tab_publish

[Glorious NSE]

Comparing with Blurb.com's prices it is on the high side if it's b/w, but about right if it's colour.

 

I'm also somewhat wary about the wikepedia mention!

 

Although on the other hand it can't just be a rehash of the Wikepedia page - you've a lot of filling to do to get 90 pages out of this entry! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffron_Walden_railway_station

[Sir Balin]

The standard of print on demand books varies enormously. I've bought 4, each from a different publisher, and returned 3 as being totally worthless (they weren't about railways). The 3 that were returned had all used some form of OCR software, but there had been no human editing, so diagrams and pictures were non-existant, and a lot of the text was scrambled and illegible.

 

I guess that one advantage of buying from Amazon is that are, in my experience, very good when it comes to having books returned.

 

As for the value of anything based on Wikipedia entries, its very much caveat emptor!

 

Ian