Book by book, author by author, venue by venue and investor by investor, the Espresso print on demand machine is picking up momentum as the paper book publishing mode of the future.

Just how close is that future? The machine needs to get smaller, faster and cheaper, the investors more open-handed and the installations more abundant. Above all, the concept needs to sink into the mentality of a publishing industry that lives in denial that the distribution system that prospered in the 20th century is going to survive in the 21st. With the erosion of traditional bookselling through store chains and independent shops, the handwriting is on the wall for a system built around trucks – trucks that not only deliver books from printers to distribution depots to stores, but carry the unsold books back to their doom in a pulping vat. The number of copies returned can exceed 50% of the number distributed.

With the alternative distribution system of e-books in place, the idea of returnable books, or at least books returnable in stomach-turning numbers (e-books are actually returnable, but the percentage of return is miniscule), has become a preposterous anachronism. The “handwriting on the wall” is actually eInk.

Print on demand on demand is another form of digital publishing, except that the end product is tangible. That publishers do not yet embrace this simple truth is part of the tunnel vision endemic on the part of book industry leaders.  It’s easy to understand why it is so obdurate: distributing books into stores via fossil-fueled vehicles generates most of the cash that flows through the publishing industry. But the unprofitability of that system, compared to one in which printed books are manufactured at the point of purchase, is appalling.

The paradigmatic shift of the book business from the current distribution model to a POD-based one is inevitable. What is delaying it is a lack of imagination on the part of industry leaders. Though they have dipped a toe in the water by issuing backlist books in POD, none has yet dared to abandon the long print run and the returnable distribution model.

All this is preface to an article by John Tozzi in bloomberg.com about progress in the installation of Espresso print on demand machines, On Demand Books Bets on Self-Publishing, which we urge you to read. It describes the efforts of On Demand chairman Jason Epstein and his investment partners to gain acceptance for the Espresso throughout the land.

At the dawn of the digital book industry, a trade publication named Jason Epstein one of three “Grumpy Old Visionaries”.  Over a decade later his original vision seems a lot fresher than that of many book industry executives half his age (he summed it up compellingly in an article published in 2010).  We wish him the gift of time to see his vision achieved and profit handsomely from it.

(And if you’re curious to know who the other grumpy old visionaries were, you may click here).

Richard Curtis

New York, NY, – In a first from a major trade publisher, HarperCollins Publishers today announced “Comprehensive Backlist.” This program will allow all physical bookstores, from the largest to the smallest, to promote and sell the HarperCollins backlist through in-store “Digital-to-Print at Retail” (DPR) using the Espresso Book Machine (EBM). The program will enable bookstores to offer thousands of trade paperback books from the HarperCollins catalog through a mix of traditionally printed books and DPR, as space and cash flow restrictions will no longer be a factor. DPR editions will be sold on an agency model. It is expected that the independent bookstores that already have the Espresso Book Machine in place will join the program.

At launch, HarperCollins will work with On Demand Books, LLC, the maker of the Espresso Book Machine, to enable instant distribution of books that are not currently stocked in stores. With the push of a button, books can be printed, bound, and trimmed to a bookstore-quality, perfect-bound paperback book, with a full-color cover, in minutes.

“Even as digital book sales grow, bookstores continue to be an important place for customers to shop for physical books. The goal of this initiative is to give the local bookseller the capability to provide customers with a greater selection of HarperCollins titles in a physical environment,” said Brian Murray, President and Chief Executive Officer of HarperCollins Publishers. “For authors this is a win; titles will be more broadly available, which increases sales with full print royalties. Depending on the size of the store, 25%-80% of our backlist titles are not stocked due to physical space limitations. DPR technology means the books will be there for the consumer at small and large bookshops.”

“We are delighted to add HarperCollins to the Espresso Book Machine network,” says Dane Neller, Chief Executive Officer of On Demand Books. “By committing thousands of titles to the program, HarperCollins is showing its clear support for bookstores and authors, and reaching more readers. Digital-to-Print at Retail is a powerful new sales channel for publishers. It eliminates lost sales due to out-of-stock inventory and provides a new marketing platform in partnership with bricks and mortar booksellers.”

“The ability to have available any book that our customers could possibly ask for is key to our vision of how to thrive in this challenging environment,” said Jeffrey Mayersohn, Owner of Harvard Bookstore. “The HarperCollins partnership with On Demand Books brings us much closer to realizing that vision. This is great news for independent bookstores everywhere.”

“With HarperCollins making their titles available for the Espresso BookMachine, the original vision and full potential of the machine will begin to be realized. Thousands more titles will be directly available to my customers, and we will capture many, many sales which are currently lost,” said Chris Morrow, Owner of Northshire Bookstore. “I hope other publishers see the potential of this sales channel and get on board. This can be a key element in the development of the bookstore of the future.”

HarperCollins trade paperback books, including adult and children’s titles, will be available on Espresso Book Machines starting in November. Titles from Zondervan and HarperCollins Canada will be available early next year. Booksellers who are interested in exploring HarperCollins “Comprehensive Backlist” offer should contact their HarperCollins sales representative to determine the optimal level of core print books that stores should carry, relevant incentives, and merchandise opportunities. The program will be available to any bricks-and-mortar book retailers. Book retailers can work directly with On Demand Books, or the vendor of their choosing, to install the machine in stores. Booksellers can contact their HarperCollins sales rep for more information.

By our count we’ve written eight or ten articles about e-book and print on demand kiosks, and the same number about the Espresso, the bantamweight book-producing machine that will one day stand at the heart of those kiosks. (See “An ATM For Books”).

Though the technology hasn’t taken off as dramatically as expected, we have never abandoned our confidence that it must inevitably prevail.

Our optimism was reinforced by HarperCollins’ announcement of plans to upload into Espressos some 5000 backlist titles. “The program will enable bookstores to offer thousands of trade paperback books from the HarperCollins catalog through a mix of traditionally printed books and DPR [Digital-to-Print-Retail], as space and cash flow restrictions will no longer be a factor,” declared HarperCollins.

Details here.

RC

No no no! We meant the Espresso printer!

Don Quixote’s demented crusade could not be more – er, quixotic – than our advocacy of print on demand kiosks.  We’ve promoted their installation not merely in bookstores and libraries – the logical place for them – but in such counterintuitive locations as drug stores, truck stops and bagel shops.

With the advent of print on demand technology there is no longer any reason for books to be sold only in bookstores, though certainly bookstores would be a good place to start. We  particularly urge the management of Borders to use its space (what remains of it) as a showroom for a million-book library that can be downloaded or manufactured on the spot.

If you want to see how our promotion of e-book and POD kiosks has nearly deranged us, click on this menu of coocoo articles dedicated to the subject.

Several factors have limited the adoption of POD on a mass commercial basis. One is the ungainly size of the printers (though that has not discouraged the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Mass.).  Another is the lack of an organized, gung-ho sales force.   These barriers however, may soon come down according to Publisher’s Weekly‘s Judith Rosen.

Rosen reports that “a new partnership with the American Booksellers Association to help get frontlist and midlist titles from mainstream houses (something that has eluded On Demand Books to date), an agreement with HarperCollins for some backlist titles with the promise of new releases at some point in the future, and more involvement from Xerox, the Espresso Book Machine could be poised to become a bookstore staple. The marketing arrangement with Xerox last March gives the On Demand Books a sales force of 4,000, and more financially attractive leasing options for the Espresso Book Machine.”

Which is why, despite our having been knocked off our horse so many times, we are ready to remount and charge the kiosk windmill yet again.

Details in Book Machines Near the Tipping Point?

Richard Curtis

Jeff Mayersohn and his wife Linda Seamonson own the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As might be expected, it carries some very old books. What is not so predictable is that it carries 4 million of them. It happens that they installed an Espresso print on demand press.

Customers access Google’s vast database of titles, many of which are facsimiles of antiquarian works worth a king’s ransom in the original but only a few dollars in replica. Writes Mayersohn: “The first book that we printed on Paige [the owners' nickname for their pet printing machine] was the Bay Psalm Book, the first book printed in English-speaking North America. The original was printed on Stephen Daye’s press in Cambridge, about a hundred yards from the location of our store, almost four centuries ago. There are 11 extant copies of Daye’s original printing. Now any customer can own a scan of the original book.”

Interestingly, though customers can download the Google  e-book versions of these editions free, they like the feel of a printed book in their hands, and the look of it on their shelves. “For many readers and for writers, the allure of paper remains,” says Mayersohn. ” Watching the joy on their faces leads one inevitably to the conclusion that we still cherish the experience of the printed word, preserved for eternity in the pages of a book.”

But reprints of ancient tomes are only one part of ye olde booke shoppe’s custom. Of the 1500 or so books that “Paige” prints monthly, three quarters are self-published works, Mayersohn explained in the “Soapbox” feature of a recent Publishers Weekly. You can read details in Hit ‘Print’: How One Bookstore Uses Its Espresso Book Machine.

You can expect to see more Espressos popping up in bookstores as the technology is perfected and miniaturized.  Indeed, as we recently pointed out, there’s no reason why POD kiosks need to be restricted to bookstores.  See I’ll Have Four Sesames, Four Poppy-Seeds, and One Copy of War and Peace

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by Publishers Weekly.

“At least one major publishing company will be acquired by a retailer,” predicts Richard Curtis in Galley Cat. “For instance (and this is NOT a prediction, just a for-instance), Amazon could acquire Random House or Apple could buy Simon & Schuster.”

That is one of eight prognostications offered by Curtis in a response to an invitation by Jeff Rivera to share his vision for the publishing business in the next ten years.

“A combined publisher/retailer solves many problems for both.” Curtis amplified on his prediction of a publisher/retailer hybrid. “The retailer owns the content and doesn’t have to pay a premium for it. The publisher does not have to pay a premium to distribute its books. There would be huge efficiencies of manufacturing and distribution.”

You can read all eight here.

Do books have to be sold at bookstores?

After the introduction last year of the Espresso print on demand press we wondered about that. As we wrote at the time (see I’ll Have Four Sesames, Four Poppy-Seeds, and One Copy of War and Peace), “If you think outside the bookstore box, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that, as POD printing technology improves and miniaturizes, tabletop presses could be installed in a Wal-Mart, Macy’s or 7-Eleven. You just go to any neighborhood kiosk and browse Amazon or Barnes & Noble or another book retail website, make your selection, enter your credit card and order the book. Finish shopping or get a cup of coffee, then come back and pick up your bound volume, still warm like a fresh bagel. Hey, you can put POD presses in bagel shops too! Just don’t shmear lox spread on your newly minted paperback.”

Installation of kiosks to support any product is still an expensive proposition when you think about all the technical challenges and support they require. Think for instance about what’s involved just to place an ATM – a kiosk that dispenses cash – in a newspaper shop. So, not only must the operation be impeccably smooth over countless uses, it must sell a product in volume that justifies the use of the real estate it sits on. DVDs are one such product. We wonder if print books are another.

These reflections were triggered by the recent announcement of installation of DVD kiosks in 200 pharmacies in the Duane Reade chain, a drugstore outfit that has become as ubiquitous in New York City as yellow cabs. The kiosks will be sponsored by Blockbuster, the movie rental giant that is trying to reinvent itself after a media revolution that left it holding a bag full of videotapes. “Now Duane Reade pharmacy customers can get a movie with their next prescription pickup,” writes Alex Palmer in brandweek.com. (We’re not sure where the kiosk pictured here is installed.)

Rental of a DVD is $1.00 per day, so cheap that it plays up how profitable volume projections must be if two corporations splitting the revenue believe they can make out well on a buck per item per day. Some other high-traffic chains like grocery leviathan Publix have opted in.“’These are places that consumers are going by every day,’” the Brandweek article quoted an executive for NCR, the company operating the kiosks under the Blockbuster name. “’You’ve got a kid who’s home sick, you can run to the drug store and pick up their medicine and grab a movie, so as they’re sitting on the couch they can enjoy the rest of their day.’”

Okay, now read Blockbuster Kiosks Debut at Duane Reade and switch “book” for “movie” and you will grasp that, as Espresso technology is refined and the machines are miniaturized, a Duane Reade or Publix book nook on every corner is entirely within the realm of imagination.

Richard Curtis

Once the Google Settlement is finalized, you will be able to print on the Espresso Book Machine any of 1.5 million titles furnished by Google. Not long after you make your selection and prepay for it, your bound book will slide out of the birthing bay, or whatever the business end of the machine is called. You can then pick it up, still warm from its natal passage through the Espresso’s POD canal.

Though it will take a mere four minutes from the time the operator hits Print” to the time you collect your order, there may be delays while customers select among a million and a half titles. So, we recommend that you make your selection before you arrive at the printer’s location. “Come on, Jack, I’ve been standing on line for two hours!”

The Espresso has been installed in a growing number of institutions, mainly libraries and colleges, and of course it’s being considered by a number of major book chains. But, as we have pointed out, there is no reason why a book printer has to be located in a venue dedicated to books. It can be set up in a supermarket, drugstore or airport. If you’re an entrepreneur with between $75,000 and $97,000 you can buy one yourself and set it up in your shoe repair shop, beauty parlor or condo lobby.

The only hitch is that the titles offered by Google are all in the public domain. But surely you can find something among 1.5 million titles to read. Bet you haven’t read Beowulf since freshman year.

Read details here.

Richard Curtis

After Perseus Books creates and publishes a book from scratch at May’s Book Expo America using the Espresso print on demand machine, you may be convinced that the only thing instanter than books is Nescafé.

The publishing company will take a pre-written 10,000 word book and “edit, design, produce, sell, publicize/promote and publish live before fairgoers’ eyes,” according to Publishers Lunch and a Perseus release.

Though the project has some of the daredevil quality of a circus stunt (and there is no safety net if something goes wrong), the goal is to demonstrate that a combination of spanking-new digital tech and age-old editorial savvy can produce a work that exemplifies the future of publishing.

Where will the text for this book come from? It will, in Publishers Lunch parlance, be “crowdsourced”. Perseus is conducting a competition to “write the first sentence for a yet-to-be-written sequel to any book ever published,” with submissions via a website set up for that purpose. Copies will be run off on the Espresso at a launch party at Perseus’s booth on the Saturday afternoon of the BEA clusterfuss.

“By the end of the day Friday.” Lunch reports, “they’ll have a bound manuscript for reviewers and an e-galley as well.” Then…

“First thing Saturday they will design a web site and Facebook page, write a readers group guide, commence publicity and promotion, record the audio version, offer foreign rights, design and select a jacket, solicit accounts live and more. Booth visitors can watch the process unfold on wall-mounted screens and weigh in at specific stages, including an editorial meeting, and a jacket design meeting.”

E-Reads recently blogged about the Espresso, which one observer described as “an ATM for books”, and our production manager actually attended a demonstration.

“What we saw was a prototype the size of a squat refrigerator, with metal hydraulics pushing the paper around, whooshing and whirring as it shaved off the edges and glued the spine. Final shipping iterations of the Espresso 2 will use electric motors and reduce the noise. For now, the prototype’s pistons were all perfectly visible behind clear acrylic panels on the machine’s sides to demonstrate the mechanics. An inkjet printer on the top printed a color cover, a fast copier on the back printed out the interior pages, both of which get taken up inside and formed into a paperback while you watch. Then after a few minutes, out pops a little book from the dispenser, hot off the press (and a teensy-bit sticky until it dries).”

We’ll be in the throng at the Perseus booth, cheering Espresso – and the future of book publishing – on.

RC

Last week, our distributing partner Lightning Source announced their pilot program with the Espresso 2 Book Machine (see the press release here). E-Reads is proud to be one of the first publishers in the program, which will see our titles available to the “ATM for books,” alongside offerings from Wiley, Hachette, McGraw-Hill, Simon & Schuster, and the University of California, among others.

We’ve always hoped that in the future we’d see mini-POD machines out in physical bookstores, making hard-to-find titles quickly accessible to customers who’d otherwise make special orders.

“Since the introduction of print on demand over a decade ago, I’ve dreamed of a day when the technology would be refined and reduced to in-store scale,” says E-Reads President Richard Curtis. “At last it’s here and I’m overjoyed at this significant moment in the evolution of the book industry. Now you can visit a bookstore, order a book online, and pick your copy up after a leisurely cup of coffee.”

Thanks to Lightning Source and On Demand Books, the Espresso 2 is the first time E-Reads has been able to make in-store book printing possible for our customers. The advance press materials will tell you that the Espresso 2 is a very practical and small machine that can print and bind paperback books in under 10 minutes. With a really fast optional Xerox copier and a short book, it gets the job done in about 5 minutes.

Last month, we took a quick trip to SoHo to see the offices of On Demand Books, where their prototype Espresso 2 print-on-demand machine was being demonstrated for publishers and retailers.

What we saw was a prototype the size of a squat refrigerator, with metal hydraulics pushing the paper around, whooshing and whirring as it shaved off the edges and glued the spine. Final shipping iterations of the Espresso 2 will use electric motors and reduce the noise. For now, the prototype’s pistons were all perfectly visible behind clear acrylic panels on the machine’s sides to demonstrate the mechanics. An inkjet printer on the top printed a color cover, a fast copier on the back printed out the interior pages, both of which get taken up inside and formed into a paperback while you watch. Then after a few minutes, out pops a little book from the dispenser, hot off the press (and a teensy-bit sticky until it dries).

Whitney Dorin, On Demand Book’s director of Business Development, made two copies for us on the spot, expertly checking on the process and helping the paper along (pictured above). The results were perfectly acceptable paperbacks, but everyone acknowledged that even though the covers look great (“They’re the most expensive part of the printing process,” she said), they don’t quite feel like your typical mass-produced covers because the heavy cover stock isn’t gloss or matte coated. In a best case scenario, many large scale print-on-demand operations give special attention to the covers and may even print them in advance, but the Espresso 2 is only a fraction of the size of those machines, so for now it looks like simple covers are a necessary trade-off.

Most of the printing components of the Espresso 2 seem modular, so that upgrading a machine to faster capabilities can be done relatively easily. Dane Neller, the CEO of On Demand Books, showed us how the Kyocera copier on the back could be swapped out for a Xerox 4112 copier capable of 110 pages per minute, accommodating books up to 830 pages long. Dane was very pleased to say that they had done all the work necessary to bring the printing costs down to a level where it was possible to see the machine pay for itself in about 9 months with daily printing.

Print-On-Demand technology really has come a long way in the past decade thanks to the hard work of Lightning Source and On Demand Books. It’s hard not to get grandiose visions of every school and bookstore having an Espresso printer, finally turning the page on hundreds of years of distribution problems for publishers. That revolution might be closer than you think.

- Michael Gaudet