Unfortunately, all my books arrived damaged because they were just thrown in a box. Crushed corners, spines, bottoms, and so on. Not the first time it's happened, either. OBS has good products and customer service, but they'd have to step up their game to qualify as shit when it comes to packing.

One print (layout) problem I noticed in Ravenloft Realm of Terror: The gutters that were fine on saddle stitched pamphlets just don't work in a thick, perfect bound book. The words on the inside of the page fall into the crevice, and are very hard to read. I suppose it's okay if you want to look up something, but reading it like a book (yep, that's why I got it) is going to be a pain in the ass. They really should have added a half an inch or so to the inner pages.

Quote from: Pat on March 09, 2021, 08:17:02 PM
Unfortunately, all my books arrived damaged because they were just thrown in a box. Crushed corners, spines, bottoms, and so on. Not the first time it's happened, either. OBS has good products and customer service, but they'd have to step up their game to qualify as shit when it comes to packing.

Mine have all come in seperate boxes that are kinda form-fitting, and come open when you pull a perforation tab. No issues with damage from the mail.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 09, 2021, 09:10:45 PM

Quote from: Pat on March 09, 2021, 08:17:02 PM
Unfortunately, all my books arrived damaged because they were just thrown in a box. Crushed corners, spines, bottoms, and so on. Not the first time it's happened, either. OBS has good products and customer service, but they'd have to step up their game to qualify as shit when it comes to packing.

Mine have all come in seperate boxes that are kinda form-fitting, and come open when you pull a perforation tab. No issues with damage from the mail.

You know those lightweight boxes, where if you put anything heavy inside it feels like the box is twisting and about to fall apart in your hands because it can't handle the weight? That's what I got. The books could slide around freely, the box provided no real protection, and the only piece of packing material was a single layer of bubble wrap that was so tiny it didn't even cover the face of a single book. Bottoms were literally were bent up at weird angles, spines were crushed, and assorted lesser damage.

Quote from: Pat on March 09, 2021, 09:29:16 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 09, 2021, 09:10:45 PM

Quote from: Pat on March 09, 2021, 08:17:02 PM
Unfortunately, all my books arrived damaged because they were just thrown in a box. Crushed corners, spines, bottoms, and so on. Not the first time it's happened, either. OBS has good products and customer service, but they'd have to step up their game to qualify as shit when it comes to packing.

Mine have all come in seperate boxes that are kinda form-fitting, and come open when you pull a perforation tab. No issues with damage from the mail.

You know those lightweight boxes, where if you put anything heavy inside it feels like the box is twisting and about to fall apart in your hands because it can't handle the weight? That's what I got. The books could slide around freely, the box provided no real protection, and the only piece of packing material was a single layer of bubble wrap that was so tiny it didn't even cover the face of a single book. Bottoms were literally were bent up at weird angles, spines were crushed, and assorted lesser damage.

Weird. I wonder why there were different packaging methods.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 10, 2021, 12:14:51 AM
Weird. I wonder why there were different packaging methods.

How many locations does Lightning Source have? Local standards might vary. Or they might have one standard for shipping solitary books (what you described is a common method), and then a lack of a standard for shipping a stack.

So the whole damaged books thing...EVERY SINGLE BOOK I have ever ordered from DTRPG has arrived in a fucked up box. Without fail. It's like they purposefully ship stuff in such a way as to ensure one of the corners gets bent.

OneBookShelf gave me account credit for... I don't know exactly what. The amount makes no sense. But it's more than sufficient.

Like I said, they have good customer service. Still wish they'd just packed the books well in the first place.

This may be part of my warning above I had not actually thought of as being a thing.

If they outsource to different printers every time then it could very well be that different printers are shipping the books off differently as well.

This is why my author friend just said fuck this, figured out who was really doing the printing and sidestepped the POD service. Great for bulk, unfortunately useless for one-offs. But there you go.

Quote from: Omega on March 16, 2021, 06:39:50 AM
If they outsource to different printers every time then it could very well be that different printers are shipping the books off differently as well.

OneBookshelf (parent company of all the DriveThru* sites) uses Lightning Source, I believe exclusively. Which makes sense, because different printers have different standards and requirements, so it would probably be impossible to just ship a file off to a random printer and get a book back without going through the full proofing profess. Checking their parent company's website, it looks like there are 4 LS locations, in Tennessee, the UK, Germany, and also Australia. Based on the shipping label and packing list, I can confirm mine came from the TN location. So it seems likely that, where ever you live, you're going to consistently get all your POD books ordered through DriveThruRPG from the same printing location. Which mostly blows my theory about different printers out of the water, though Europeans, North Americans, and Australians may all have different experiences.

Yes, but Lightning Source itself looks to be outsourcing to various locations.

So at a guess OBS is outsourcing to Ingram/Lightning Source - who is outsourcing to their network of printers if I am reading the data right. But could be each locale handles some different product type like paperbacks here, hardcovers there, softcovers over there.

Got my copy of Planescape today.
The book came in the single, form fitting package, so no shipping damage.
The print quality, I'm not so thrilled about. The pages either seem washed out, or darkened. The washed out pages have sections, the fluff text in a sepia color, that are difficult to read. The darkened  pages make the art look smudgy.
It's useable, but I think it needed some contrast correction somewhere along the process.

My DTRPG order for the 1e set a while back all came in one box with no bubblewrap, packed together, so the ones on the outer got some dings on the edges.  Annoying but other than overpaying on EBay, no other choice.  On the plus side, there was a misprint on one page of the DMG and they refunded me he whole purchase on that one so good and bad.  Really wish they would use some better designed packing boxes.

Quote from: Brad on March 10, 2021, 11:27:20 AM
So the whole damaged books thing...EVERY SINGLE BOOK I have ever ordered from DTRPG has arrived in a fucked up box. Without fail. It's like they purposefully ship stuff in such a way as to ensure one of the corners gets bent.

My Worlds Without Number Kickstarter POD showed up today, and the upper right corners are fucked up. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME!

I've never had a problem with mine.  They always seem to arrive singly with the pull-strip that Ratman mentioned.
A few times it has been a couple of volumes in one box but they were bubble-wrapped and the box was tight.

It may just be whoever the actual print shop is.

(I am in southern Ohio)

Quote from: moonsweeper on March 25, 2021, 06:56:51 PM
I've never had a problem with mine.  They always seem to arrive singly with the pull-strip that Ratman mentioned.
A few times it has been a couple of volumes in one box but they were bubble-wrapped and the box was tight.

It may just be whoever the actual print shop is.

(I am in southern Ohio)

Pacific Northwest here. WA state.