Fellow book-lovers and readers, have you noticed respectable presses issuing "hardcovers" with:

* bindings glued not sewn
* low-resolution digital printing
* grey (not black) print
* subpar paper
?

Charging full hardcover price for cheap print-on-demand product is dishonest.

Here's an example. On the left is my friend's copy, a real sewn hardcover. On the right is my copy of the same book.

If publishers find it easier to sell the cheaper versions, they should at least have to acknowledge their different status and price accordingly.

That book is Patrick Deneen's Why Liberalism Failed, from Yale University Press.

Do authors (who receive first printings) even know that presses are following up with flimsier stuff for the later printings?

@PatrickDeneen
@yalepress

I had the same problem with Alan Jacob's The Year of Our Lord 1943 (Harvard University Press).

Read a borrowed copy, it was well produced as I expected. Decided to buy a copy for myself, and it's a totally different volume, cheap and hard on the eyes.

What gives @Harvard_Press?

CORRECTION
Jacob’s book is from Oxford University Press.

Note how the glued binding has a dummy piece of fabric to make it look more like a sown hardcover.

And compare the fuzzy print with something properly typeset from Oxford.

@OxUniPress

A Cambridge example, Alasdair MacIntyre’s Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity.

Glued binding, and my laser printer has cleaner print.

@CambridgeUP

This is a *glued* binding on a 600+ page hardcover, first printing from @BasicBooks. Why?

@holland_tom

Two more glue-bound hardbacks this week, this time from @Palgrave_ and @Regnery. Why is it so rare to find sewn bindings anymore?

Another example. At least some honesty (“Transferred to Digital Printing”, yes there is degradation of print quality), & I’m happy to have it on steep discount ($9.99).

But listing it at original HB price of $110?

It’s inferior glue-bound POD, deserves separate ISBN & pricing.

Maybe publishers thought they could get away w/ this during the transition to a post-book world.

But physical books aren’t dying, and book-lovers won’t put up with this indefinitely.

Publishers: go ahead and issue two hardcover versions, but price & advertise accordingly.