Online booksellers often denote "mass market" vs "trade" paperback which does potentially give you info on the quality of the paper.

"The paper quality is better as well, as most often they are printed on acid-free paper like a hardback book." - https://biblio.co.uk/book_collecting_terminology/trade-paper...

(I've found this to be relevant when sourcing physical copies of out of print books.)

I ordered books under the public domain on Amazon. At least 50% were printed on the cheapest paper and on Demand. Some were printed from scans were part of the text is missing and looked like photocopies.

Just because the book is in the public domain does not mean I want a book that looks like a fanzine.

Maybe it does not scale, I agree. This is why a curator is IMO important.

I agree the quality of Amazon self-published books can be terrible, notably recipe books. just as youtube can make anyone a tv star, or spotify a musician, Amazon self-publishing means anyone can be an author now

as for the metadata, that would be retrospectively impossible. your best chance would be to filter out Amazon as a publisher

You do get "Condition of book" which isn't quite the same thing but helpful along the same thread

I would take a coffee-stained, dust-clad, sepia-ridden second edition from a proper publisher over the 20gsm, toxic-inked, loosely-bound crap churned out by Amazon any day