Error in physical book on Amazon

[Philipp]

While preparing my book for a physical release on CreateSpace, I've ordered a total of 4 proofs. Once I was content with how it looked, I approved it and ordered it once again via Amazon as soon as it was live, just to make sure. The book looked perfectly fine, so I started telling everyone about it (Social Media, Newsletter, etc.)

I ordered another ten copies, once again via Amazon, but this time I noticed an extremely frustrating error. All italic "d" letters were broken throughout the whole book:



Meanwhile, a friend of mine had ordered one copy for himself via Amazon - and his book had the same issue.

I sent my ten copies back, and let Amazon send me a replacement. I got them today, and they all still had the aforementioned problem.

Now I requested a refund and contacted CreateSpace and Amazon to please sort out the issue.

I'm quite puzzled as to why only these italic letters are affected, and why it's now broken for every book I order via Amazon. Don't they print it on demand? Is there a sort of template, which is now defect?

Has anyone else had similar issues? What can I do to help resolve it between CreateSpace and Amazon?

[Thomas]

I haven't had this issue, but since I haven't seen anyone post yet I'll just throw some ideas out. First, it's the printing company having the problem, not Amazon. Putting an order through Amazon just requests CreateSpace to print it. CreateSpace is who you'll want to talk to.

The first question that I would try to answer is "Is it the font?" I would contact CreateSpace and see if they can help you identify why it's printing that way. It's going to be directly related to how their system is reading your file. If their system and printers aren't reading the font properly, it could be an embedding issue.

Second would be, is it some weird formatting issue with the actual document, not the font? This seems less likely than just a font issue. The less ideal method I personally might employ is to strip all formatting and start over just to make sure it doesn't pop back up. This may or may not be an option for you, but I wanted to make sure it was out there as a potential fix.

[[deleted user]]

I haven't had any issues like that, but I create my book in Word, and then convert it to PDF. When I save to PDF, I click the option button before hitting save, then check the box "ISO I9005-1 compliant (PDF/A) This will embed your fonts. Try it and see if it works. You should see if your italics are correct in the proofreading stage.

[Philipp]

Thanks for the responses! I've got a message from CreateSpace, they're looking into the issue now. Amazon told me that they can't do anything on their part, so Thomas is right, the issue should be fixed by CreateSpace.

@Morris: I did that exact thing when I saved it as PDF, but it's good to know that it should work this way.

If it is a font issue, I'm curious as to why the 4 proofs and 1 order from Amazon did not have that error. Maybe the embedded font they use in their template got broken? I'm not exactly sure how they print their books.

[Philipp]

Just FYI, CreateSpace contacted Amazon.de and sorted out the issue.

Thanks again for the hints!

[Thomas]

Ah good! Were they able to tell you what was going on?

[Philipp]

Unfortunately, no specific details were mentioned, so I assume it's just a technical error that I personally couldn't have prevented ):

Here's what they said:
(...) We have received a response from our Technical Services Team regarding the misprinted copies of your book "Walter's Deal." The necessary corrections were applied to your files, and we have confirmed that the italic "d" letters are now appearing correctly in your book. In this case, we ask you to please contact Amazon.de in order to request a replacement of the affected copies. (...)

[Thomas]

Well, that's a little frustrating, but it's good they identified and fixed their issue, and you'll be able to get replacement copies.