How to determine if a book ordered from Amazon is print on demand?

September 24, 2024 6:03 PM

Every once in a while I'll order an "older" book from Amazon.ca thinking it's a legit book and it turns out to be a low-quality "print on demand" book with a horrible quality cover, sketchy looking interior pages (photocopied?), printed on a type of cover paper I can't stand touching vs how nice an actual book cover can feel). On the back it will say "Manufactured by Amazon.ca" My problem is, I can never TELL from the description of the books which ones they'll be!!

This has happened to me for books published as "recently" as 2016. I know the real rule should to NOT be from Amazon and usually I do just order from local bookstores, but sometimes I'm impatient and want to start reading a book ASAP.

This is the book I ordered a few days ago Cousin Bette by Balzac (I like these editions!!) and the edition I got just feels so cheap! I was able to get a refund (without having to return the book), but now I have an ugly book I don't want to read! Anyway, how on earth can I tell from the book pages if the book is print on demand? Because when I look, I just can't see anything that mentions it!! Is there something I'm not seeing on the listing, or is this more common than I think? Maybe the fact that it was 28% off? But I've seen books randomly on sale on my local bookstore websites, so that might not be a total red flag.

posted by VirginiaPlain to Media & Arts (17 answers total)

Customer reviews will sometimes mention it.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 6:37 PM on September 24 [3 favorites]

The Amazon marketplace review and ratings system is now completely corrupt, and the only way to guarantee that the resulting crapshoot will not cost you money, time and possibly house fires is to buy elsewhere.
posted by flabdablet at 8:39 PM on September 24 [15 favorites]

Does the book not have the same cover as the one you linked to? If not, send it back. If it does, then something is truly amiss. I assume you have this one, but could you clarify?
posted by dobbs at 8:58 PM on September 24

@VirginiaPlain, can you check whether the book you received really has an ISBN of 0375759077, with an ISBN-13 of 9780375759079?

(On preview, looks like @dobbs is pursuing the same line of thought I am...)
posted by graphweaver at 8:59 PM on September 24 [1 favorite]

Who was the seller? Was this a case where a third-party seller latched on to a legitimate listing for the Modern Library Classics edition but sold a fake good, or a case where the seller was Amazon? ("Sold by" is different from "Distributed by")
posted by trig at 9:00 PM on September 24 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: It’s literally a print on demand version of the Modern Library Classics version, as stated and linked to in my question. It has a very different feel/paper quality/literally says “Manufactured by Amazon.ca” on the last page.It was sold and shipped by Amazon.ca

I, myself, am confused as to why another edition of the book is being linked to in the answers? I bought the one I already linked to.
posted by VirginiaPlain at 9:19 PM on September 24

So, @VirginiaPlain, what I was trying to figure out is whether a site like bookfinder could help you figure out if the edition you were looking at is a print-on-demand edition.

When I follow the link in your original post, the page I land on offers me the ISBN-10 and ISBN-13 I linked in my comment above.

When I plug those into bookfinder (like this link), I get a list that includes quite a few "Print on Demand" / Modern Library / 2024 entries... not all, but enough to raise suspicions? Which might be sufficient to address your original question, which is, "how can tell whether a particular edition is print-on-demand".
posted by graphweaver at 9:45 PM on September 24 [5 favorites]

If a book is out of copyright (as this one probably is, given the age of the author, but i have not verified this assumption) literally anyone can try and sell a print-on-demand version of it on Amazon using KDP. It’s as simple as uploading a PDF. Amazon doesn’t do a great job of keeping the editions separate. I don’t know if you can easily tell what edition you might be getting if you use Amazon. I think the only real answer here is to buy elsewhere. Ideally a brick and mortar store where you can see and touch what you are buying, but obviously thats not going to be possible in most cases.

If you really want to start reading now and its out of copyright, find the ebook version on something like Project Gutenburg (itll be free or very cheap digitally if out of copyright) , and read that until you can get the physical copy delivered from a reputable bookstore.
posted by cgg at 9:59 PM on September 24 [5 favorites]

I can't speak for anyone else but I was assuming that Modern Library was still a traditional good-quality imprint and that even Amazon wouldn't intentionally do something as messed up as selling POD editions without actually labeling them as such. Shows what I know. (Apparently ML has been allowing POD since around 2000.)

I think unfortunately the only way to be sure is to research imprints (or on preview ISBNs) to make sure POD isn't a thing for them. Or to buy truly older editions from the "Used" sellers. And where this has happened maybe post minimum-star reviews mentioning the fact, in case someone searches the reviews or checks the negative ones before buying. (For this listing there is one 2-star review with a photo that complains about what seems to be a POD edition, albeit with a different cover than the paperback listing has.)

It seems like this should be the sort of thing that a consumer protection agency would have something to say about, but that doesn't help you in any timely way.


sometimes I'm impatient and want to start reading a book ASAP.

I think realistically this might just have to be balanced against the massive crappiness of Amazon (that, or you could develop a taste for ebooks. Or libraries, if you have them nearby...)
posted by trig at 10:08 PM on September 24 [5 favorites]

I've been bitten by this a few times, from Amazon UK.

When I've had it happen with fiction, the books have been:

(1) listed as out of print or otherwise unavailable on non-Amazon bookstores;
(2) published more than ten years ago [you might want to adjust this number, looking at your 2016 example];
(3) listed as new on Amazon, as if they're still in print;
(4) sold by Amazon directly, not a third-party bookseller; and
(5) more expensive (list price) than I would expect a mass-market paperback from, say, 2013 to be.

Looking at your listing, it certainly hits (2), (3) and (4). A new copy of a book with a 2002 publication date, sold by Amazon. I can't speak to (1) and (5).

I think it's a form of bait-and-switch, and they absolutely should state it upfront, but sadly, here we are.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 2:18 AM on September 25 [3 favorites]

From what I can tell, some publishers basically have their "back catalog" published through Amazon print on demand, it's an easy way to make some money on low volume books. These would have the exact same ISBN because it's "just" a new printing of the same edition. So it's not as easy as looking at the ISBN.

The best bet may be to try and buy used, if you want this specific edition, you can do that through Amazon. But that's its own minefield.
posted by muddgirl at 3:02 AM on September 25 [2 favorites]

In this particular case, several of the 1 and 2 star reviews mention the poor quality and strangeness of the printing. Perhaps looking at just the 1 and 2 star reviews from now on could be of help.
posted by cooker girl at 6:40 AM on September 25 [5 favorites]

Thrift Books has many copies of many editions and yours is listed as both a secondhand paperback and a new one (for $16.53, "50 available"). I haven't bought from them for a few years but I swear they used to list the vendor information so you knew what bookstore it was coming from. I don't know if you can glean any useful information from the listing I've linked.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 7:43 AM on September 25 [1 favorite]

When I go to the OP's linked site at the top of the listing there is a link for "See all formats and editions" which brings a side tray out from the right where (for instance) it shows 19 paperback editions, some showing reasonable cover pages, some not. I am assuming that this is a puzzle we are working on collectively, I am not saying this is an answer per se.
posted by forthright at 8:21 AM on September 25 [4 favorites]

Reasonable cover page doesn't mean anything because publishers are submitting their own books for print on demand. The cover will look the same but it's overall lower quality.
posted by muddgirl at 11:56 AM on September 25 [1 favorite]

I would have been suckered by this one too, since I didn't know Amazon was printing for other imprints—are there other stores you could buy your used books from? In the US I usually get extremely similar prices (and some of the same used book dealers) on eBay and Amazon.
posted by Polycarp at 1:33 PM on September 25

It's not foolproof, but for the specific book you linked, there are several reviews that mention problems with the printing that can give you a clue to this issue.
posted by decathecting at 10:04 AM on October 1 [2 favorites]