I just received a Kiseido book I ordered on Amazon: A Survey of the Basic Tesujis by Richard Bozulich. It is brand new, but the cover is heavily pixelated and the print quality is very low. The text and diagrams are stippled gray instead of solid black, presumably to save ink. The paper feels cheap.

The last page has this written on it:

Made in the USA
San Bernardino, CA
June 12, 2017

which is the date I ordered the book.

Google search reveals that San Bernardino is the location of Amazon's on-demand printing facility. The books are printed on a laser printer. The quality is not really acceptable unless you really need the book, especially for the prices they charge (i.e. the regular price).

Unfortunately the Amazon product page said nothing about the book being printed by them. I don't know what sort of deal Kiseido has with Amazon (they must have one, or this would be illegal). Will I still get a regular Kiseido quality book if I order from Kiseido directly? For the time being, it looks like ordering from Amazon is a no-go. I will be returning the book.

Who was the seller of the book, can you provide a link to the actual book on Amazon?

Product link on amazon.ca
"Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca." Apparently, printed by them as well.

A comment on Reddit pointed out that the most likely explanation is that the publisher of the book is a scammer impersonating Kiseido. The name of the publisher is written as "Kiseido Puyblishing Company", with a typo. So at least this isn't the case of the real Kiseido dramatically lowering their quality.

I have just checked some of the Kiseido books I own. I order directly from Kiseido so the books I own are definitely from the publisher. It would appear that Kiseido no longer publishes books with the nice ivory color pages such as some of the older printed volumes I own and ordered from around 2007. The newer books I own are just as you say.

My K80 "Close Encounters with the Middle Game" has written on the last page:

Made in the USA
Charleston,SC
11 May 2016

It would seem that Kiseido is only publishing new titles under a print on demand publishing format nowadays. So unless you are ordering old stock which they have from the past, expect this quality in subsequent Kiseido books you order.

also refer to this thread viewtopic.php?f=17&t=13718

_________________
http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

I'm not surprised that Kiseido has moved to print-on-demand format. There have been ominous signs of the dying of publishing in English of paper go books. First there was the demise of Go World, now this move to print on demand. For a niche market it's too expensive now to publish high quality paper books at prices that most people will pay. Publishing on demand requires no production of a large physical inventory of books which may or may not sell. Unfortunately the quality of the resulting book is not as high as in the past.

I just received three books that I ordered directly from Kiseido website. They do not look like you describe. I've also ordered a number of books from them in the past without this experience. They have all been typical quality paperback books -- I've been very happy with them. These books were all also shipped from Japan. So, that may in fact be the difference.

Print on demand for small print runs uses digital printing, which supports a wide range of paper, ink, resolution, binding etc. quality. You get what you pay for. E.g. all my books have digital printing but the quality is good because I have chosen the printer and material carefully. If I halved the printing costs, I would also get throw-away printing quality - but this is not what I want to offer.

If Amazon CA does not offer acceptable quality, Kiseido might switch the printer and pay more for better printing quality. Or let print in other countries.

May we know the names of the books you had ordered directly from the Kiseido website and just received?

_________________
http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

A comparison of two Kiseido books bought directly from the Kiseido website
Hidden because of the use of too many photos.
Sorry if the pictures are not as sharp as I would like but is a limitation of my old camera.

_________________
http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

The book I got looks just like yours, tchan001. The worst part is how some of the black stones on the diagrams are solid black, and some aren't.

Certainly. The ones that I just received are One Thousand and One Life-and-Death Problems, Five Hundred and One Opening Problems, and Making Good Shape.

These books all resemble the pictures of The Basics of Go Strategies that you posted. The only difference (and this may be just an issue of lighting) is that the pages are slightly whiter than in your photos, but not the flat white color of your photos of the Close Encounters with the Middle Game. In December, I also bought both volumes of The 21st Century Dictionary of Basic Joseki. The paper of that book is closer to what is depicted in your pictures of Close Encounters with the Middle Game, but the quality of the actual printing seems fine. The coverage of the "ink" seems complete and consistent. Certainly, not the experience that palipiku describes:



All of these books are listed as "Printed in Japan" inside, and the only issue that I have had is that the laminate on the cover of one of the Joseki Dictionaries is peeling off. However, that book has gotten A TON of use. So, I see it more as a limitation of paperback covers rather than a defect in the book.

As luck would have it, I also have three books from Amazon by Kiseido including the book mentioned by OP. I received them as gifts, but I'd guess that they were purchased in early December. They include Get Strong at Endgame ("Made in the USA, Middletown, DE"), Handicap-Go Strategy and the Sanrensei Opening ("Made in the USA, Lexington, KY"), and A Survey of the Basic Tesujis ("Made in the USA, Lexington, KY"). Most of the pages are similar to the Joseki Dictionary volumes -- no printing inconsistencies, partially black stones, etc. However, while the covers of the first two look fine, the cover of the latter is noticeably pixelated. And having looked at the pages carefully, there are some of the described printing issues on a small number of pages. It's not significant enough that it would bother me, but the pages that are affected do resemble the ones in the photos. So, the quality is different than the books labeled as printed in Japan.

Might be worth e-mailing Kiseido with the photos and asking for their thoughts. My guess is that there was just a printing problem, and they'd probably send you a replacement.

Edit: Previous version had said there were no issues with the printing of the three books printed in the US. However, on closer examination, there were some issues.

I have emailed Kiseido and got a response directly from Mr. Bozulich. He has confirmed that they use Amazon's on-demand printing and that quality is sometimes not very good, "but after two or three copies, they improve". He suggested that I notify Amazon about quality issues (which I did). He also offered to send me a well-printed copy.

That seems like a reasonable outcome. It was nice of you to notify Amazon, and offering to replace a defective book seems like the right way to remediate the problem. Hopefully, Amazon will get those printing issues worked out. That said, it only takes about a week to get the books from Japan to the US. So, ordering from their website is always an option.

The on-demand printed book tchan001 posted was ordered from the Kiseido website. So this is not something specific to ordering from Amazon.

It's ok, although the printing quality for that particular book isn't great. I can live with it. I have too many go books and I'm sure some of them will not be printed as well as others.

_________________
http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

For what it's worth, I have the same printing of Close Encounters with the Middle Game, and although I am pretty finicky about book quality, I didn't notice any issues with it until I saw the pictures here and double-checked my copy. I've ordered books from major publishers (Springer Verlag, Oxford University Press) that were much, much worse. I write this not to leap to Kiseido's defense but just so people have an idea of what they'd be getting.