Why in 2015 are we flying paper half-way around the world?
Doesn't Amazon (and others) have a print-on-demand service that would be more cost effective and not waste the fuel of flying 20lbs of paper across an ocean?
The amount of fuel used on that twenty pounds is trivial when factored in with all the tennis rackets, shirts, etc that are also in that plane. However, this doesn't get to the crux of the problem that print on demand is still an immature technology compared to offset printing, and provides an inferior good. Running a printing press is an artform, and pure digital doesn't offer the same quality tools quite yet.
I really like books, although I'm comfortable with online/ebook reading, and I have to say that the company chosen for this book delivers superb quality compared to every US origin print on demand book I've looked at, at least for the first edition of this book. I can't tell it from offset (although some embedded links came our grey because I assume they were delivered in color and not caught in galleys). Even the color artwork looks great---ironically, it's the back corner where the company puts its standard ISBN/price/self-advertising rectangle that looks bad when looked at very closely and makes clear someone dropped the ball somewhere (maybe that's an artifact of the author choosing such a high quality for the cover).
The amount of fuel used on that twenty pounds is trivial when factored in with all the tennis rackets, shirts, etc that are also in that plane. However, this doesn't get to the crux of the problem that print on demand is still immature technology compared to offset printing, and offers an inferior good. Running a printing press is an artform, and pure digital doesn't offer the same quality tools quite yet.
The amount of fuel used on that twenty pounds is trivial when factored in with all the tennis rackets, shirts, etc that are also in that plane. However, this doesn't get to the crux of the problem that print on demand is still immature technology compared to offset printing, and offers an inferior good. Running a printing press is an artform, and pure digital doesn't offer the same quality tools quite yet.