Manning Publications Reviews 16

The content is good but the platforms is stuck in early 2000's development, very buggy at times. Plus unsubscribe from newsletter never works!
Love the covers, really creative and some of the publications are unique.

I accidentally ordered the ebook version of a book that I wanted in paperback. I requested a refund on the same day. Manning refuses to refund me.

Absolute garbage. I cancelled my subscription and then two weeks later received a notification that I magically resubscribed. After that another renewal for another month.

Honestly, the publications are half-arsed, lacking any real explanations and instead just write this magic code/use this library. These sorts of books become obsolete quickly, and are easiest to write. They seem to be mannings bread and butter. Beware.

They just bad, no tracking information, no posibility to cancel order, single guy support. And i still didnt get book, and when asked about tracking they responed that when "warehouse" dispatch then i will get e-mail. 2 week passed and nothing. What is wrong with this company.

Do not even consider buying a book here! Once they get a hold of your email address the spamming never stops! Up to three, four e-mails a day with spam, unsubscibing is pointless. Spam, spam, spam. Awful.

No order tracking / shipping information. Completely ridiculous that, in this day and age, a company of their size can't figure out how to include this in the order process. There are companies that operate out of a spare bedroom that offer a better customer experience. Customer service responded to an email regarding order status with this gem... "If you don't receive your package within six weeks from your order date, please let us know". That caveat should be clearly visible when a customer is attempting to order. Never purchasing here again.

They're crooks. They stole my money for a service that was cancelled and they have not replied to my email for over 2 weeks. None of the x emails I have written to them from multiple mailboxes. They just ignore me.

I have recently Ordered Grokking Deep Learning (print + eBook) and Grokking Deep Reinforcement Learning (print + eBook) form the UK. I was charged a hefty charge of 25 USD for international shipping. However, my booked was actually shipped from a UK address.

I sent an email to support at manning.com to refund this and charge a normal shipping rate within UK but they never returned to my email. Thus I have to leave this experience here.

Manning UK Insurance Brokers

Just insured my Porsche 911 996. Jason Hopes was outstanding with organising. Making sure precise details noted to ensure a specialised quotation for my very special sports car. Thank you.

(updated review after new version of MEAP book)

I have limited, but good experience with only two books:
‘Blazor in action’ which is absolutely a 5 star product. Great explanation on the subject and a very nice project (Blazing trails) from start to finish. Including a lot of useful information for everyone who want to build a real life Blazor app, including authentication and authorization, JavaScript interop, …. Very nice to buy the printed version and get the pdf version for free.

My second experience is on: ‘.NET MAUI in action’ which is a MEAP product. This book has a good introduction on .NET MAUI. A MEAP product is nice, because you get early access on previews of the book. The final version includes different projects which cover many topics on .NET MAUI. The book is accompanied with codelabs and for each chapter starter and finished projects are available.

The option 'read in live book' is great: additional comments are added to the examples. You can mark and add your own notes.

Hopefully both books gets new updated editions for new .NET versions. Updating the 'BlazingTrails' project to .NET 7 is not trivial due to some outdated libraries and you can apply the new C# 11 required members.

Ordering is quick and trustful for the Netherlands. Also very handy to get access to the books in your manning account. The only thing missing is information how to leave a review of your product. I want to give ‘Blazor in action’ 5 stars, but I do not see the option even when you bought the book on the Manning site.

Manning is a riddle. The book end of things in terms of editors and authors is great, but the product end is thoughtless / buggy garbage. Examples:

- Bought a physical book, but the website doesn't tell me if it is shipped. No tracking too
- Bought a LiveBook only to find the syntax formatting is garbage. It's not hard, but they've apparently chosen to hand roll something that does stupid stuff like highlighting the word "is" in a string constant. Also adds whitespaces and indents where it shouldn't.
- Bought audio with a LiveBook, only to find out the hover over to get to a play button doesn't work most of the time. Depends on the paragraph
- If you don't like a book format, guess what, full price to get another format. e.g. to get a pdf version when you have a LiveBook

So in summary, I love the content but absolutely hate the product end. The developers / product folks at Manning need to up their game.

As Juan said in the earlier review, the shopping experience for international users is awful.

Much more expensive than other companies even for the "no tracking" option. I bought a book on August 9th, that I was expecting here in Portugal. After almost 1 month after, I sent an e-mail asking for my book. They said that international shipping may take up to 2 months, and asked me to await. The second came but my book did not. Sent another e-mail and I was asked to await one week more just in case, if I did not receive they would send another book with tracking. I wait one more week and nothing. They didn't reach out asking, I had to send another e-mail and they send I would receive an e-mail with the tracking code as soon the book leaves their warehouse. 4 days have gone by, and nothing. Sent another e-mail asking if they would send the tracking code, and they reply that the book may take 5 DAYS to leave their warehouse. I'm astonished. It's so so bad. In the meantime, I bought two books from Amazon in one week, from the USA, and they arrived the next week. I know Manning is not Amazon, but you can surely send something cheaper and that takes way less time to arrive.

PS: the audacity of asking me to wait one more week after two months was the cherry on top

There was a problem with payment but it was solved by support. Great books for good price. Highly recommend.

Cannot received from them something as simple as a password reset. Try to contact customer support and it is just 'radio silence'.

I love Manning Books, but the shopping experience for international shoppers is awful!

Their default shipping method is way pricier than their competitors, and offer no tracking; to top it off, their shipments can take more than a month to arrive in the Americas territory.

I've also noticed they tend to increase their shipping prices when their books are on sale... I'm not sure if this is a "coincidence" or if there's a legitimate reason for that.

When I contacted one of their customer service agents, he couldn't provide me any reasonable solution to my problem, and offered me a (very low value) coupon!... not very helpful at all.