Do we all remember the black leather slipcased editions of the three History of Middle-earth volumes? How they are all different heights, and HC was completely caught off guard by this, because they samples all looked good but then the printer just changed things when doing the full run?

The publisher doesn't have 100% control over what the printer does when the trigger is finally pulled. Especially when travel between the UK and Italy has been so challenging this past year, and paper (or all wood, really) supplies are horribly limited and prices are skyrocketing... There's not one simple root cause that can be blamed here.

Here's lumber prices (which reflect similarly for paper supplies):



And paper and other pulp price index (from a US tracker for this chart)

This seems to be about quality in general. One thing is the paper....but there is also loose strands reported, too much adhesive on spines, red colour marks on pages, text upside down to the cover. And worst of all a failiure to detect a seemingly considerable amount of copies with flaws .

I agree it is about quality in general, and there are lots of different quality issues. There are probably multiple different explanations (not excuses) for what we are seeing. The paper cost is just one - I can imagine HC gave the printer instructions and a budget back in April, and paper was bought in September and the printer (and perhaps HC) had to choose - triple the cost of materials, or choose less expensive paper to keep within the budget for the already locked-in retail price?

But lockdowns, infections, inability to hire people, inability to travel, costs changing wildly when budgets were not, all are possible contributors.

These books were packed in shrinkwrap and protective cardboard sleeves by Rotolito months ago. They were never seen by anyone working for HarperCollins, ever, as they were shipped around and distributed without being opened, inspected, and then re-sealed. And things have clearly gone wrong at Rotolito.

I ordered and paid for the deluxe edition from Blackwell's online on 12 October, along with a hardback Silmarillion and a facsimile gift set of the Hobbit. Was thrilled to receive the Silmarillion and the Hobbit, but the deluxe LOTR has never shipped, and I can't get anyone at Blackwell's online to respond to my inquiry. Is this usual for Blackwell's? Anyone else having this trouble with them? Any advice or contact info with someone from Blackwell's who might assist me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Moss Gatherer wrote:

I ordered and paid for the deluxe edition from Blackwell's online on 12 October, along with a hardback Silmarillion and a facsimile gift set of the Hobbit. Was thrilled to receive the Silmarillion and the Hobbit, but the deluxe LOTR has never shipped, and I can't get anyone at Blackwell's online to respond to my inquiry. Is this usual for Blackwell's? Anyone else having this trouble with them? Any advice or contact info with someone from Blackwell's who might assist me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

They will quite often send books separately if they don't have them all in the same warehouse at the same time. My receipts from them all say "Please note that your order may be dispatched in multiple parcels" at the bottom.

This link should provide additional help: https://blackwells.zendesk.com/hc/en-g ... ck-check-my-order-status-

I have been using the online support system for Blackwells due to my defective copy, and it has taken over a week for each message to them to get a reply. I believe they are short-staffed and/or getting a large number of requests for help, but in any event, be patient and hopefully someone will respond eventually. I know this isn't super helpful, but it is what I have muddled through recently too.

Many thanks. I do have an online problem request in from the link you referred to me. Submitted it almost a week ago. It actually helps to know that I am not the only one having trouble with getting an answer. I can wait until they can resolve it. Again many thanks for the feedback!
Allie

Urulókë wrote:

I agree it is about quality in general, and there are lots of different quality issues. There are probably multiple different explanations (not excuses) for what we are seeing. The paper cost is just one - I can imagine HC gave the printer instructions and a budget back in April, and paper was bought in September and the printer (and perhaps HC) had to choose - triple the cost of materials, or choose less expensive paper to keep within the budget for the already locked-in retail price?

But lockdowns, infections, inability to hire people, inability to travel, costs changing wildly when budgets were not, all are possible contributors.

These books were packed in shrinkwrap and protective cardboard sleeves by Rotolito months ago. They were never seen by anyone working for HarperCollins, ever, as they were shipped around and distributed without being opened, inspected, and then re-sealed. And things have clearly gone wrong at Rotolito.

This is all true. But, ultimately, it is HC that are responsible for some of the design choices people are complaining about. Things being printed incorrectly are absolutely about the printer (& quality control after that); paper choice, sorry, that's 100% on HC. It's like complaining about those non-Ford parts in your car not performing to the standard you expected, when you were the one that ok'd the garage to put non-Ford parts in your car. You can talk about minimum standards i.e. the expectation that the printer wouldn't source actual toilet paper to print on. But, for a 150 RRP deluxe, that''s not a choice you should have allowed the printer to be making, if that's what's being claimed.

I'm not sure about your argument, HC will tell the printer what type of paper to use, it has to be FSC certified and a certain weight, but I doubt that they tell the printer were to get the paper from.

It appears that different paper suppliers may have been used by the printers and this could have caused some of the printing issues.

Personally I think the responsibility is joint. Whether it is the publisher or the printer, the two must communicate in order to make a work meet the expectations of customers, especially when it is a so-called collector's work. I can fully understand that the current market is in turmoil and that the temptation to produce quickly and in large quantities is attractive, but the fact remains that when we offer our customers a luxury and "limited" version, we must provide quality. quality and attention to the smallest detail.

So I received the deluxe today. Several issues as shown in pics. Getting three copies av the king’s letter is rather strange.