Quality Control Issues

Given I have been reading quite a number of threads that mention QC issues in the past while, I wanted to discuss in a dedicated thread.

I searched on the FSD page for threads with 'Quality Control' in the title and came across 3, the earliest being 2015 (the year JR landed at FS as consultant prior to appointment to a year later as CEO) and then a couple more and later.

Obviously a vastly greater number of QC issues crop up in other threads, but not as the main issue.

Some horror stories and quite inexplicable how the books were sent out at all.

To be fair to Folio, it's just impossible to catch everything, with some shippings containing the odd anomaly to what is generally a good run. However I can't work out why recurring issues (eg the latest one being slipcase colouring running/rubbing onto book boards excessively in what is just bad product design) are not immediately dealt with.

I would argue that with the combination of increased pricing and expensive shipping, that this type of thing should be nipped in the bud immediately. That of course shouldn't matter as a product should always have acceptable production quality, however the increased cost does make the case even stronger or more compelling to get this right.

Although not an active purchaser as I once was, I still would pull the trigger on the right book at the right price, and keep a keen eye on these threads to see what way the wind is blowing. So this is interesting to me.

What is striking to me is that in the past 10 years, FS have marketed themselves as the market leader in quality, which I find to be thought-provoking insofar that i ask the question, is this just marketing hype or truth?

>1 LesMiserables:

I agree with your remarks. Although I still purchase roughly the same amount of books, what I think has changed is an increased number of books with paper sides. Paper sides are prone to more damage issues (and, of course, they feel cheaper in the hand while reading and are more easily smudged). I'm fine with buckram sides but could we stop using plain paper? Inquiring for a friend (me).

>2 podaniel: I have a soft spot for the modigliani paper sided books that FS used to produce. They also seem to hold up far better than the alternative papers used. In my opinion.

As discussed here in the past, our individual tolerances of faults or defects are variable. I can't say I'm terribly worried about the slipcase colour rubbing off on the book cover because I think they've been doing that for years and it doesn't bother me enough to return the book. Surface noise. I can still hear the music.

If there's a design strategy that can fix that without adding hugely to the book's price, great.

What does bother me is more obvious printing defects like a signature that was only printed on one side, leaving the pages on the other side blank. I've had that happen once in all my twenty-odd Folio years and I got a replacement free of charge after I sent them photos of it.

Anything less than that is unlikely to bother me, but that's me :-)

Of my last sixty (60) books ordered, I've had exactly one (1) Q/C issue, which was a six inch gash along the slipcase of A Dance of Dragons directly across the sigil, which Folio happily replaced. Shipping damage, though, was slightly more prominent, with four (4) books requiring replacement. I'll probably jinx myself, but it's been thirteen months since I've had any issues, knock on wood. This coincides, not coincidentally, to changing my delivery address to my office instead of my home, which Fedex seems to treat with far more respect.

>5 HonorWulf: That's one side of the business that seems by all accounts to have maintained the highest standards: customer service. And one that should not have been included in the CEOs 'failing in all metrics' comment on her promotion interviews.

My experience has been very positive. I’ve likely bought 75 or so folios over the years and only needed 4 replaced, and all appeared to be damage during transit. I also have a hard time complaining about the quality, considering the no questions asked (atleast in my experience) replacement policy.

Of the 6 I have bought in the last 3 years or so (Beowulf, Man on the Moon, Moonstone, Hobbit, LotR, Mythago Wood), both the Tolkien editions were total trainwrecks, but the other 4 were well made.

>9 stubedoo: Yeah, I remember the conversations around the Tolkien editions. That was a nightmare. Glad the others were sound.

It feels like a bit of a gamble. I had a really unlucky streak with damaged limited editions a while back (scraped leather, faulty gold foiling on crinkled vellum, stuff like that, all easily visible with the slightest quality control) as well as transport damage in two cases back when they used DHL and didn't have extremely safe packaging yet. Two of the last three LEs I bought were okay, though, and the one that wasn't was inside damage at least, so easily overlooked unless you take a close look at the book. Most standard editions are also fine. They ironically tend to be in better shape than the much more expensive limited editions in my experience. That being said, I appreciate their excellent customer service when it comes to replacements, though I must also say that I would have stopped buying from them if that wasn't the case since there were just too many expensive books that weren't in acceptable shape when they arrived. I would definitely prefer to get books without issues right away, though, and with most of what I got, that would have been possible with some quality control along with someone other than DHL and better packaging, both of which they implemented, thank goodness.

I heard in a Tolkien group there were around 300 replacement Hobbits manufactured and sent out from of a limitation of 1000. As as far as we know none of the faulty copies were required to be returned or destroyed. Thus the second hand market for the Hobbit LE is a bit of a minefield. I really hope LEGO S.p.a. have got their act together since then and that Folio have imposed tighter QC on them for their projects.

>12 zorg2099: Thanks for this. I see them on eBay and will probably purchase the sets at some point. I'll know what to look out for.

I have been a member of the FS, then a customer, since 1992 and have bought hundreds of books from them (I now own over 1100 FS books), but have only returned two for quality control issues (one an LE) and none for packing issues despite living on the opposite side of the planet.

I also live on the other side of the world and have been a member since the 1980’s. I have over 100 FS’s and have never had to return any.

>12 zorg2099: "I heard in a Tolkien group there were around 300 replacement Hobbits"

That's correct (though the number is an educated guess). The problem was that they replaced the original copies with new copies that - in some cases - had a whole bunch of new issues, and then they replaced them again with new copies that had different issues again (and were printed on different paper - though this was never disclosed). I think most people either got a copy they could live with or just gave up. They did ask for at least some overseas buyers to return the original copy (or copies), but it was written as "if at all possible", and was months after the fact. I doubt they got many back at all. They didn't ask UK buyers to return them. I didn't return mine.

So yeah, definitely don't buy them on the used market without lots of pictures, so you can pay an appropriate price depending on the specific copy being bought. Quality-wise, even the good ones are pretty crap. The boards are laughably thin - you just don't get any real sense that it was intended to be a durable well-made edition, which isn't really forgivable at the price point (£600).

>16 stubedoo: Quite. Some may say this was a unmitigated disaster. Most won't though, lest they summon the Kool Aid Kraken.

>17 LesMiserables: It's time.

>18 HamburgerHelper: 15 years well spent.

One of the more egregious quality control issues I came across during the expensive Foliomania phase of my life was seeing 'discrete' mispelled as 'discreet' in the Micrographia LE, in the 'Editor's Note' to boot. I returned my copy with a note to the editor.

>14 wcarter:

Be glad you do not live in the US. The US postal service is . . . fascinating (there's a reason workplace violence is referred to as "going postal"). I have had FS send probably around 50 duplicate FS books, all due to the originals being damaged in transit.

>21 podaniel: Similar for me back in the day. Things are much better now. In the old days, they would place large orders in boxes and then the boxes in large shipping bags. The bags were like an invitation for the postal workers to toss them around. I’d always hold my breath when opening my Folio bags and more often than not the box inside would be beat to hell. Of the books inside, the ones near the edges would generally be dinged up.

Usually the replacements would be sent in smaller lots without the bags and would arrive in one piece. Even back then, though, shipping was expensive for me so I followed the large order once or twice a year strategy.

>21 podaniel:

I've had a few hundred Folios shipped over the years while living in 5 of the 6 US time zones and had zero issues with the USPS.

The only quality control issue I remember is the volume of Dawn to Decadence that had the wrong notes & a corrected copy was reissued.

Generally, if you are reading this thread: picky folks will find a reason to picky.

>22 Chemren: I've never had issues with the Royal Mail bags (I actually miss them). Boxes inside may have been a bit beaten up but I never had a dinged book. And they are a lot easier to carry home from the mailbox :)

But then I am somewhat of an outlier if you trust our board here - from the few hundred books I had bought from Folio in the last 20 years or so in 2 different countries (Bulgaria and USA), I had needed a replacement for only one book - and it was because of pre-packing damage of a book during one of the sales a decade ago. Their packaging seems to be nuclear blast-proof - the boxes may look like crap in some cases but the books make it unscathed.

>1 LesMiserables:
Since I began buying direct from the Folio Society in 2007 I have had only one quality control issue that I did not discover until months after I bought the book and I did not do anything about it.

A very large and clear thumb print in black ink on one of the volumes of The Locked Room Mysteries

>25 N11284:
Speaking of quality control issues that do not come to light until months later, one of my FS books, back in the 1990s, had a fly incorporated into one of the pages. It must have flown into the continuous paper roll (the "web") in the printing press, and got itself "rollered" into the paper. An unpleasant discovery.

>23 kcshankd: "picky folks will find a reason to picky."

The faulty LEs I had were absolutely not being "picky". The Hobbit problems wouldn't have been acceptable on a £100 book, but were absolutely atrocious for a £600 book. My £1000 LoTR had to be re-manufactured by Smith Settle (on behalf on LEGO) and even then it was not great. These were badly made books. They were also quite badly designed, but that's another issue.

If you are happy putting up with expensive trash, feel free. That's quite the race to the bottom, though.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Beowulf is wonderfully made. Polar opposites in terms of product quality.

I live in the U.S. and have only had three replacement books sent in my 38 years of buying from FS. One was damaged in transit, and the other two were for the same order, when they actually sent the wrong book, and then did it again with the initial replacement. Thankfully they got it right on the third attempt.

For what it's worth, I am an online bookseller in the United States, and have shipped (well-padded with bubble wrap) thousands of books with the USPS, both domestically and to overseas destinations (mostly in the UK) and have never had a single complaint of damage. I've purchased about a dozen times from Folio, and only had to request a replacement once, for an order of two copies of The Last Unicorn SE, which arrived in a somewhat battered box, with books also dented, unnecessarily, due to insufficient honeycomb wrapping. I do understand how this paper-based padding is more sustainable, but it simply isn't as effective at protecting the contents of a box that's mishandled.

>29 dhowarth333:

It seems to depend on how it's used. I've seen honeycomb paper wrapping that was really thick, layered in both directions, and properly pulled, which means that it opens up. That way it protects books really well, one issue being that if it's pulled directly around the book, it might just damage the dustjacket when it's pulled around it.

>30 SF-72: Interesting. I had never encountered it before ordering from FS, and all but the one shipment arrived intact. I am re-using it for my own shipments (as I attempt to do with all boxes and packing materials I receive), so I'll keep what you've written in mind.

>31 dhowarth333:
It's used quite a bit in the UK and by now also by some US sellers. Some use it without pulling on it and then it's completely useless, like wrapping simple paper around something.