September 20th: As I mentioned last week, I had the opportunity last weekend to see a copy of my book which was purchased directly from Amazon, and probably printed using their Booksurge printers. In comparing it to my own personal copies which came direct through Lulu, there is very little difference between the two. The binding, interior pages, paper, and print quality are practically the same. The one major difference between the two that stuck out at me is the quality of the pictures on the cover. The Lulu copies have a darker and crisper picture, showing a lot of detail in two of the pictures on the cover. It was obvious in the Amazon copy that these pictures were a bit bright and even foggy. Seeing the copies side by side made it quite obvious so I snapped a picture of them. The Amazon copy is on the right…
The most obvious differences are in the green foliage in the fountain picture. They appear more defined in the Lulu copy on the left, but brighter and not as crisp in the Amazon copy on the right. Also, notice the water falling out of the fountain’s top basin. It’s very sharp in the Lulu copy, but just appears cloudy in the Amazon copy. As I’ve said, if you picked either copy up off a bookstore shelf in different stores, you’d never notice a difference. But in comparing them side by side, the different print quality in the book covers is obvious.
In other news, the Kindle E-dition hit the #1 spot in genre fiction again this week, but quickly fell to #60 which is where it is now as I write this.
