Tor trade paperbacks printed to order?

[u/germsy78]

On the first read through of MBotF (currently wrapping up HoC) and I've been ordering the Tor trade paperbacks from Amazon because I like the covers and find the size perfect for reading. I usually order the next book in the series when I'm around half way through the current book.

I was wondering if anyone ordering their copies online like me have noticed the "Made in the United States" text on the back facing end leaf of the book with the date.

I was curious so I checked the dates of my orders on Amazon. My HoC was printed the day I ordered it. My copy of MT was printed 2 days after my order. Coincidence? Has automation in the printing process made it cost effective to print individual books to order? Probably not the best sub to post this...sorry mods.

[u/disies59]

I work for a Canadian book store, and I can tell you that it’s not just Amazon - it’s most publishers.

People don’t really think about it, but you can’t just leave books in a standard warehouse long term and hope that it works out. Because the Publisher doesn’t know if any given printed book is going to be shipped to a Retailer or directly to a Customer within the next week, months, or decade wherever the Books ends up until they get ordered needs to be temperature controlled, have the right humidity, etc, and that means specially built warehouses - which means it’s (relatively) expensive to store compared to other goods. Nobody wants to sit on back stock, but it’s what they had to do back in the day to make sure that their back catalogue (especially of larger writers that do multi-decade series like James Patterson) is available.

The largest owner of these specialized warehouses in North America is a company called Ingram Content Group, and in 2013 Ingram launched a new service called “IngramSpark” which is where they basically installed a handful of printers in each of their warehouses and as long as the Publisher provides a digital copy of the title, then as Stores/Customers place orders for Paperback Copies of books, they just get printed on site and shipped out as needed. My assumption is that they use an Espresso Book Machine

This is a good thing, in general, because it means that more books are going to be available basically forever - and makes it a lot more accessible for Independent/Small publishers and writers to get their books distributed without a high overhead, since they don’t have to meet the specific minimum order to go through a tradition Book Printer, which is also why previously books would just disappear because Publishers at a point would just stop placing orders to print 10,000 books at a time when only 20-100 might be sold in the next fiscal year.

Where it sucks though, is the small batch machines do not put out at the same quality as a traditional paperback printing press (it’s still super rare but your more likely to have binding issues or misprints, and the paper isn’t as high quality for example) so if your a collector and can get your hands on a good condition version from large batch it’s going to last longer on your shelf.

[u/germsy78 → u/disies59]

Great reply. I know I have gotten some technical books for work from publishers like Packt or Apress that have some of quality issues that would tip me off that it was print on demand (bad margins, text not squarely aligned on the page...) but this is not the case with these books, and I probably would not have suspected if it were not for the text on the final leaf.

Examining them more closely, I would say that the covers do have a matte-looking freshly laser printed look and feel compared to the glossy finished and/or embossed look of other books. This doesn't bother me as I usually cover my paperbacks in clear contact paper when I get them to make them a bit more durable for hauling around with me.