Interesting print quality comparisons

Having a self-published book that is printed on demand means you (or rather, your readers) have to tolerate inconsistency in print quality, because different printers have different ways of reproducing your source file.

So, if you are about to order one of my books or have just done so, although the interior of the book - the main content - will remain the same there are some slight exterior difference.

For example, after designing the front cover of Drive to Nowhere, I purchased proof copies from the Lulu site. The printed colours, especially the blacks, did not come out as dark as I would have liked (see version on the right), although the quality was nevertheless acceptable.

The company that printed the books when I ordered them via Lulu was Anthony Rowe, a short to medium run book manufacturer in the UK. When comparing the book to the source file, my design definitely looked darker on screen (and my monitor has been colour calibrated) and the edges of the letters on screen was smooth. But as we know, in the print on demand world this doesn't mean that the actual physical book will turn out the same.

For this reason, I chose not to try and redo the cover because no matter who you use, the cover will always look slightly different.

If you order my book from Amazon UK, then Lightning Source will print it, so it will look different again. I'm still waiting on that copy, but I also ordered a copy of my book from the Amazon US site which I think is also printed by Lightning Source. It was interesting to discover the colours turned out far darker than the Anthony Rowe version -- almost too dark, in fact, but closer to my original intention. In addition, there was less of the blurred, fuzzy edges that had characterised the Anthony Rowe versions. Also of note: they'd added their own version of the barcode to the back of the book and on one of the last pages, and the back cover was EXACTLY as I'd intended. So if the third printer produces a front cover that's in between these two versions and has the Amazon.com style back cover... or is that too much to ask?