A few quick thoughts

• tolkien.co.uk website - I personally think they are stuck with it (as the sole outlet of the POD titles), but otherwise it doesn't generate enough traffic to justify (to the purse-string holders) investment to maintain. I imagine they get single digit clicks on the news tab (my checking it again today was the first time in more than a few years, and I would consider myself an avid fan, yes?) At some point, they do have to do a cleaning up after deciding what they really think the purpose of that website should be. Their news outlets (social media, the actual corporate website at harpercollins.co.uk, etc.) all did a very good job on the news of Christopher's passing, as that is where all of their readers are. If I had to hazard a guess, they paid a contractor/company to make that website for them, but no-one in house has the skills or the job mandate to maintain it, and they are all quite busy with their actual day jobs and the budget to keep paying the contractors evaporated.
  

• I think it bears mentioning again that HarperCollins quite respectfully follows closely the wishes of the Estate - the note from David mentioning how Christopher did not want a resetting of the text to introduce new errors is indicative of their care and respect for requirements we have no visibility on day to day. The cost of resetting the text and then proofing for a few thousand copies in sales... just didn't make any sense at the time.
  

• I re-read the "bespoke POD" description from https://www.tolkien.co.uk/print-demand-bespoke-new-edition/ due to this conversation, and I have to say with all of those "hand cut, hand inserted, hand glued" steps they go through, it is incredible that copies come out looking anything like each other! We are so spoiled in modern first-world terms with mass manufacturing that we sometimes completely forget what bespoke means for consistency...

eorl wrote:

Agreed with onthetrail. The Estate website was a nice surprise to have back when they first released the new version. There was a lot to explore and it felt quite “bookish”. It has stagnated since then. I still love it though. ?

Perhaps the Estate has had their hands full these last few years with movie/slot machine lawsuits and TV show negotiations, and of course all the changes in executorships. I remain hopeful that the Estate website will get a refresh some day.

I feel like there are some legitimate complaints in here, but there is a point where we fall into pointless indignation. The idea that HarperCollins should have put something about CTs death on their Tolkien sales portal (that almost no one uses) feels to me to be absurd and is really a stretch. They put out releases via all the normal channels.

I have no problem with discussing the failings of their book construction (although I must admit, I'm not super-bothered by the boldness variation thing -- it would not personally affect my use of those books, whereas I do think those particular books are generally poorly constructed and would not hold up to use).

I think there is a point where reasonable complaint can tip over into "entitled whinging" and just looking for things to be indignant about (which is a modern social phenomenon).

Urulókë wrote:

• I re-read the "bespoke POD" description from https://www.tolkien.co.uk/print-demand-bespoke-new-edition/ due to this conversation, and I have to say with all of those "hand cut, hand inserted, hand glued" steps they go through, it is incredible that copies come out looking anything like each other! We are so spoiled in modern first-world terms with mass manufacturing that we sometimes completely forget what bespoke means for consistency...

So your comment caused me to re-read that same page, and you're right it seems much of it is done by hand. I actually decided to reach out to HC via the contact link at the bottom of the PoD site, and unfortunately I got a "undelivered mail return to sender" error in my inbox. Has anyone made an order with them recently, or otherwise interfaced with the customer service team managing the PoDs? Care to share the proper email address, since it seems their contact form is broken?

Stu wrote:

I think there is a point where reasonable complaint can tip over into "entitled whinging" and just looking for things to be indignant about (which is a modern social phenomenon).

Get over yourself.

Stu wrote:

I feel like there are some legitimate complaints in here, but there is a point where we fall into pointless indignation. The idea that HarperCollins should have put something about CTs death on their Tolkien sales portal (that almost no one uses) feels to me to be absurd and is really a stretch. They put out releases via all the normal channels.

I have no problem with discussing the failings of their book construction (although I must admit, I'm not super-bothered by the boldness variation thing -- it would not personally affect my use of those books, whereas I do think those particular books are generally poorly constructed and would not hold up to use).

I think there is a point where reasonable complaint can tip over into "entitled whinging" and just looking for things to be indignant about (which is a modern social phenomenon).

I don't know who can think that it is ok to have all book with this color degrading each several pages. I will demonstrate finally the issues the closest I can. It is something they call deluxe and I paid as for the deluxe one, but then here we are with really unexpected results.

I am still reflecting on what HarperCollins had written several messages before:
« ...it's almost inevitable in large print runs of a boxed set containing around 5,000 pages that there will be some variation in the printing across the sheets of paper, as they are printed using traditional ink processes ».

If it had been occasional several (or even several dozens) of pages of slight variations, I would agree, but not full three volumes of issues one after another. And it is not a barely seen variations. It is huge shits.

Really, I have books to compare my experience with.
Just take a look at these books I own and use for years (French publisher «Le Robert»). I an sure you can find them at libraries in Great Britain. They just need to go one day to library and look at this quality.

1) Dictionnaire Historique de la langue française (ISBN 9782321007265), 2 808 pages, Format : 283x210x127 mm, weight : 5,90 kg, price: 116 EUR
2) Le Dictionnaire culturel en langue française, (ISBN 9782850363023), 9 648 pages (4 volumes in total, 2200 pages+ each, Format : 255x190x235 mm, weight : 13,03 kg, release date : 26/09/2005, price: 200 EUR

Each of listed above books has the the same ultra thin paper, ultra small font, thousands of pages, also print in Italy, but it has 0 even smallest color shifts on thousands of pages, it has 0 print defects on letters (I am not talking about «torn letters», I mean occasional print color defects on whole paragraphs or pages). I owned the previous 1-volume edition of «Dictionnaire Historique de la langue française» (ISBN 978-2849026465) and it also had 0 issues. I use these all for years and I’ve seen no issues catching eye.

So how can it even be that HoME deluxe edition is filled with defects up to the degree I don’t even need to look for it attentively to find one? It feels abusive when HarperCollins is saying that it is ok (like it is an expected or acceptable quality). I get about negatives defects (which may be harder to pay attention to and time-consuming to fix), but the physical print quality control is not a thing to do. It is a must. From what I know I am not the only one with this copies of books, so I can’t think that I am just a unique case.

And I truly don’t believe HC representatives can think it is ok if they see what I see on pages. Now, when I started to check the degree of the issue across my 3 volumes I see that some pages have even color-quality shifts within a single page (part of words are like not same pressure printed so they are not black, but grayish, sometimes even not fully filled with ink).

Why other HC Tolkien-related books have nothing like this at all, not even close! I mean 99% of my experience with HarperCollins books has always been just perfect! I mean the closest and the only case I can remember of is with one-volume LOTR 60th anniversary Deluxe edition from 2014 (number 20 in my list of books below), 1st print, but I ignored it. I thought it was my copy only and black color shifts happens at hundreds times lower rate and not so obvious in degree of dark-grey shifting.

Really I have what to look at and to compare with, because I have from HarperCollins the Tolkien Books listed below:
1 The Fall of Gondolin Hardcover Deluxe (1st print, L.E.G.O, Italy) - 9780008302764
2 The Children of Hurin Deluxe (1st print, L.E.G.O, Italy) - 9780007252237
3 Beren and Luthien Deluxe(1st print, L.E.G.O, Italy) - 9780008214203
4 Tales from the Perilous Realm Deluxe Signed edition (1st print, Clays, Great Britain) - 9780007237159
5 Unfinished Tales Deluxe (1st print, L.E.G.O, Italy) - 9780007542925
6 The Silmarillion Deluxe (3rd print, Printing Express, Hong Kong) - 9780007264896
7 The Hobbit Deluxe (no print digits, Printing Express, Hong Kong) - 9780007118359
8 Newest 2020 The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings Boxed Set 4-vol Illustrated Edition (1st print, GPS Group, Slovenia) - 9780008376109
9 Mr Bliss Facsimile Slipcased edition (2nd print, Imago, China) - 9780007255337
10 The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion (1st print, Lego, Italy) - 9780007556908
11 The Annotated Hobbit (3rd print, Printing Express, Hong Kong) - 9780007137275
12 The Hobbit illustrated by Jemima Catlin (no print digits or location print marks) - 9780007497904
13 The Hobbit Sketchbook (1st print, Slovenia) - 9780008226749
14 The Art of the Lord of the Rings (1st print, China) - 9780008105754
15 The Art of the Hobbit (4th print, China) - 9780007440818
16 The J.R.R.Tolkien Companion and Guide 2-vol edition (1st print, L.E.G.O, Italy) - 9780007169726
17 The J.R.R.Tolkien Companion and Guide 3-vol edition (1st print, China) - 9780008214548
18 The Atlas of Tolkien's Middle-earth paperback (no print digits, RRD Asia Printing Solutions, China) - 9780008194512
19 The Complete History of Middle-earth Deluxe 3-vol edition (1st print, Clays, Great Britain) - 9780008259846
20 The Lord of the Rings Special 60th anniversary ed. (1st print, South China Printing Co) - 9780007525546

Experience with The Complete History of Middle-earth is absolutely another.

Possibly my 1st print copy of book may have been affected at significantly higher degree, I don’t know, but what I see looks like superficial quality control of print. And I tell it not to offense HC or anything like that, but I just 100% sure that they cannot call it a decent quality if they really look at the same print issues I am looking at.

Sure, I can do nothing with this except providing HC with my opinions, experience and thoughts, but I feel that I must do it. If «Le Robert» publisher can hold high quality on same-kind of paper and 2500-9600 pages of their books for 100-200 EUR, HC can also do it. It is about where they print and how they control what is printed for them, nothing else.

I hope their current HoME prints have fixed or reduced this issue to the level of what they are calling «slight shifts» or no at all.

But I feel like they preferred another way. The last message I got from HC was kinda informative about forthcoming plans on digital versions of HoME:

"Good morning

Please see below from our Tolkien Team -

Thanks for sending the pictures. It is hard to see much difference in the photos between the normal pages and what he calls the 'grey' pages, but all the text looks clear and easily readable. We cannot take this up with Clays, because these books are three years old and we no longer have a contract with them, but we can ensure to the best of our ability that we reduce these problems as much as possible in future printings.

However, some of the differences may be a result of the source material used when these omnibuses were first created in 2002. The photo showing variation on the same page looks to me as if a correction has been made to the text at some point in the past - I know, for example, that Christopher Tolkien made corrections to the series after Volume 12 was completed. This would have entailed pasting new text (it looks like lines 29-35) on to a printed copy of the book and offsetting that page for the next reprint, resulting in the replacement text having a slightly finer weight than the old text. This is a legacy of pre-digital typesetting methods and the fact that these editions have been compiled from archive materials.

I hope this helps to explain. These omnibuses contain material that is between nearly 25 and 40 years old, but is presented in the best way possible to make them available to as many people as possible. We are currently working on new ebooks that will ultimately replace the printed editions and solve a lot of the issues that Mr Taratynov is concerned about, and will probably become the version of choice for most Tolkien readers and researchers.

Kind regards,
Dawn"

So, I can sum up on the topic and I should:
1 Find a way to sell my copies somehow and get some decent amount of money back (which is unlikely).

2 Save money to get PoD 13 individual volumes (hoping the PoD sipping will become available to Ukraine at Tolkien.co.uk). I've seen photos and for some reasons they are of another, higher print quality, at least in the text color part. I prefer physical books, so I should find a solution.

3 Never pre-order HarperCollins pricy book editions. Purchase them after reviews of other customers.

4 It is too hard to show anything to publisher if you cannot physically visit or meet someone from there. I mean it is really hard to show how issues look in real life. In real life you can easily catch on eye an issue, when you take a photo of it, color correction, light and other things just changes a lot. By the way it was extremely hard to take that shot I show you here preserving focus and visibility of the issue. In real life it is visible from normal distance.

Amedautrui - I feel like you didn't remotely read what I wrote. My comment was that complaining about whether HC acknowledged CTs death on the website seemed like a choice to be deliberately offended. I absolutely stand by that.

My other comment re the colour density change was simply that it didn't especially bother *me* (it genuinely does not impact my reading of the material at all), unlike the general construction quality, which does bother *me* (as the book will fall apart with any real use) . I don't argue that that you have a legitimate complaint (although evidently not one that seems to concern most readers. Surely you have to accept that you are an outlier in terms of how much this variation in the text bothers you?).

:shrug:

gobbledygook wrote:

Stu wrote:

I think there is a point where reasonable complaint can tip over into "entitled whinging" and just looking for things to be indignant about (which is a modern social phenomenon).

Get over yourself.

Thanks for the useful input. I stand by the point. Being offended by the lack of comment on CTs death on Tolkien.co.uk is - at best - absurd.

gobbledygook wrote:

Stu wrote:

I think there is a point where reasonable complaint can tip over into "entitled whinging" and just looking for things to be indignant about (which is a modern social phenomenon).

Get over yourself.

Please do not make personal attacks on this board.

1) I never said I was offended, I said I was disappointed. At least read the bloody post before you go and post your bumbling.

gobbledygook wrote:

Well in this case, they dropped the ball. While I understand there might be some people who were deeply affected, lack of any statement on the official Tolkien site managed by HC regarding Christopher's passing is disappointing.
It leaves a bad taste in the mouth, regardless of what they thought at the time, it's what you do that counts. That was my point.
Speaking of websites, Estate's website is horrendous as well as outdated.

2) Your attitude is on the whole unnecessary. Your behaviour was derogatory from the start and continues to be so.
In the best interest of the theme creator and all the people who were involved in a normal discussion until you made your comments, I've no interest in engaging in further conversation with you.