Received Delhi online printer's 12 spiral bound copies and 1 Soft Cover bound copy of iami1 blogbook; Spiral bound copies don't have specified cover front and back pages!

Last updated on 20th May 2018

On 30th April 2018, I had placed an order for 12 spiral-bound copies and 1 Soft Cover bound copy with printonweb.in, a Delhi based online printer, at a total charge of Rs. 1119.80.

Shipping problems and delays

Today (11th May 2018), I received delivery of the order. There was a frantic period I went through yesterday evening for this delivery. Yesterday (10th May), according to the DTDC courier company tracking info., they reported that the package from the Delhi printer addressed to me was NOT DELIVERED yesterday due to "(RECEIVER NOT AVAILABLE)"!!! But I was at home for most of the time, and did not receive any call or SMS from DTDC! I raised a complaint with DTDC customer support and perhaps due to that the status today morning changed to "Out For Delivery" from "Ananthpur Super Franchisee(PUTTAPARTHY)".

For my first order with another Delhi based printer, I faced an alleged package return problem. I had made the order over email (as their web ordering system was not working properly) and did not receive any courier consignment number or any status of the order. After I called them up a week or perhaps even ten days down the line, they told me that the package got returned to them!

So this time around with a different Delhi printer (printonweb.in), since I had a tracking number, I was regularly tracking the progress of the package. Yesterday evening/night when I saw that the status was NOT DELIVERED due to RECEIVER NOT AVAILABLE, I got very worried and became frantic. I thought that this package may get sent back to Delhi. So I checked out DTDC website about how to raise a complaint and eventually managed to get my complaint for this package's consignment number registered in their system. Perhaps that played a role in the package status today morning changing to 'Out for delivery' with no mention of 'NOT DELIVERED' status. It was a great relief for me to see that.

But I did not want to leave any stone unturned in this courier delivery matter. So I tried rather frantically to contact the DTDC Puttaparthi people - both the boss and the delivery man. Eventually I got through and was informed that no such package had been given to them yesterday and that the package was expected today afternoon. I was told to call up again around 4 PM (if I did not receive the package by then). I called up a little after 4 PM and was told that the package had arrived at their office and that I should receive it by 6 PM.

I eventually got delivery of the package perhaps around 5 PM. I did not check the time. It was a great relief to get the package. The delivery man also confirmed that they had not received the package yesterday. The delivery man and his boss's view was that some mistake (by DTDC Ananthpur office) was made in reporting the tracking information due to which my package had got the wrong status yesterday evening as NOT DELIVERED due to RECEIVER NOT AVAILABLE.

I have clearly understood now that shipping of such printed books to Puttaparthi can turn out to be cumbersome affair. I don't think I have ever faced such a delivery issue with amazon.in orders which gets sent via various couriers. I think perhaps courier companies go out of their way to ensure good quality service to top companies like amazon.in but may not be so particular about service quality to smaller companies like printonweb.in.

All 12 spiral bound copies don't have specified cover front and back pages!

After opening the package, I received an unpleasant surprise. The specified cover front and back pages were missing in all the 12 spiral bound copies. The one Soft Cover bound copy had it. See pics below. Note that these pics were taken in the late afternoon with the light starting to fade. So the pics are not so sharp. I may take additional pics tomorrow late morning or early afternoon and add to or replace the pics in this post.

[To open pic in higher resolution, right-click on pic followed by open in new tab/window. In new tab/window you may have to click on pic to zoom in.]

Above pic: 12 spiral-bound book copies and 1 Soft Cover binding book copy sent in the package.

Above pics: Front view of spiral-bound book; 1st one was taken in fading light on 11th May and second (immediately above) one was taken in afternoon (around 1.30 to 2.15 PM) under good daylight on 12th May.

Above pic: Back view of spiral-bound book

I called up printonweb.in. They were co-operative. They checked and said that their operator had made the mistake of not using my specified cover front and back pages. They said they would credit the cost of cover (colour on thick glossy paper) pages that I had paid, to my account at printonweb.in (which, I presume, would get used/adjusted for any future orders I make with them).

I was polite with them and wanted to be a co-operative customer looking for a solution to this problem. I asked them whether they could send me the cover page prints and whether it would be possible for some Puttaparthi (local) spiral binding person to attach the cover pages to each of the 12 copies. After some discussions on their side, they agreed to send the cover page prints, and told me that the local spiral binding person could attach those cover page prints to the 12 spiral bound books. Within an hour or two they had printed the Cover pages and dispatched them. This time they used Professional Courier and provided me with the consignment number - they had asked me earlier whether they could use Professional Courier to which I had said it is worth trying out even though I do not know how good their service quality is today.

Later I checked with a Puttaparthi spiral binding person. He said that the holes punched in the copies provided by the Delhi printer will not match the holes (distance between  holes, I guess, was what he was implying) his binding/punching instrument makes, and so there will be a problem in attaching the cover pages sent by the Delhi printer to the spiral bound books! Anyway, he is willing to try it out when the cover pages do arrive. I am happy to see this gentleman's willingness to help me out.

As I thought about it, I realized that I should have asked the Delhi printer to print and punch holes in the Cover pages using their spiral binding/punching instrument, so that the problem mentioned above can be avoided. But the Delhi printer had already dispatched the cover print package! I wonder whether they thought about this issue and punched the cover print pages. I will find out when I get the package.

The print quality of inner pages content is good. I showed it to one of the two main persons of the Puttaparthi bookshop which has agreed to put the (final) book(s) for sale. He agreed that the inner pages content print is good. Please see pic below. 1st one (immediately below) was taken in fading light on 11th May and second one was taken in afternoon (around 1.30 to 2.15 PM) under good daylight on 12th May.

Soft Cover binding book from Delhi printer

The Soft Cover binding quality of the Delhi printer is decent but not close to the professional finish of the book provided by Pothi.com. It is better than the other Delhi printer's Soft Cover binding quality (covered in an earlier post). As the binding cost is Rs. 90 (besides printing) taking the production cost of the book to around Rs. 150 per copy (shipping extra), I feel that for Soft Cover binding I should use only Pothi.com (or other equivalent) professional book publishers/printers. Note that Pothi.com book sells for Rs. 159 per copy (shipping extra).

Given below are some additional pics of the Soft Cover binding book copy:
1st one (immediately below) and third one, was taken in fading light on 11th May and second one was taken in afternoon (around 1.30 to 2.15 PM) under good daylight on 12th May.

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A pic of various iami1 book types I have now (12th May):

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Around 3 days ago (around 17th May), I received the Delhi printer's package of 12 thick colour front cover pages and 12 thick colour back cover pages. I requested the help of one of the Puttaparthi local shops that provide spiral book binding services (whom I had approached in the past). Though there was a mismatch in distance for some of the holes punched by this shop's binding-punching machine, he used a pointed instrument to manually create additional holes where required and got a patch-up job done. A new spiral binding cord (white colour instead of original black) had to be used as the removal process (before new spiral binding inclusive of cover pages) spoiled the original black colour spiral binding cord.

He charged me only Rs. 100 for this patch-up job for 12 spiral-bound copies. I offered him more but he declined. He is the person I had paid Rs. 100 in the past for his advice and consultancy services in earlier attempts I had made in Puttaparthi for book binding, and so he said that since I had already paid him in the past for that, now the charges were only Rs. 100. That was kind of him. I thanked him profusely.

Given below is a pic of some of these spiral-bound book copies with front cover page (and back cover page).

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