Recently I was using an e-book I had access to through my school’s subscription to Springer. They advertised a ‘MyCopy’ service, which gives you a printed copy of the e-book for $25 including shipping http://www.springer.com/mycopy. I couldn’t find a review of the printing quality anywhere so though I’d post one quickly…
The actual copy would be $98 for softcover or $103 for hardcover. The trick with MyCopy is you can only order it assuming you have access to the e-book: thus you have a license to print a physical copy, and springer is just printing what you already are licensed for.
Anyway it looks good: colour wrap-around cover, B&W inside. Print quality is good – black is very “black”, although noticeably shiny. Paper seems bright and weight OK. As far as print on demand (POD) it’s great – better than I was expecting for $25. It’s lower quality than a real offset-print textbook, but it’s pretty close, better than other POD I’ve had. I recently bought a “real” book from the ‘Missing Manual’ series, which is apparently using POD for some books. The “real” book I got is far lower quality than the Springer MyCopy, so should give you some idea for comparison. The Springer MyCopy I got was printed in USA as well.
Some images (click for full resolution):
Front Cover:
Binding Detail:
Text close-up, white-looking areas are shiny reflections:
Binding can be pushed down and lay somewhat flat without breaking: