Time Magazine is all agog over the Espresso Book Machine (“meaning ‘fast,’ not ‘coffee’) because it can “churn out a 300-page paperback on demand, complete with color cover, in just 3 min. The $50,000 machine could transform libraries into minibookstores, making hard-to-find titles as accessible as cappuccinos. At $3 a book they might be cheaper too.” In fact, the machine is a Time “Inventions of the Year,” based on reader votes.
On-the-spot, instant print on demand excites me, too, and I know that the people behind the machine will make lots of progress. For a jolt of realism about the machine’s current capabilities, however, check out an if:book post from August 3. (Time item found via Peter Brantley.)
Related: Time snubs e-books for Invention of the Year, in MobileRead. Oh, come on, folks. It’s not one or the other. No need to cancel your subscription. Remember that the number one Gadget of the Year is the e-book-capable iPhone. And OLPC’s even-more capable XO laptop is a winner in the computer category (even though the mentioned price of $150 is currently $38 or so less than the price of the day). “The stripped-down machine with its sunlight-friendly screen,” says Time, “is perfect for kids in the developing world, and the low price encourages governments to buy in bulk.”
Technorati Tags: POD , print on demand , Expresso book machine , book machine , Time Magazine , OLPC , OLPC laptop , $100 laptop
Did you know the Science Industry and Business branch of the NYPL has one of these machines? I don’t know how long they’ve had it nor have I seen it work.
Hmmmm… the PR I just found indicates it’s probably gone. Trial run?
http://nypl.org/research/sibl/services/espressobook.html
Gone? So when will the tech be good enough to stay around? It’s something to look forward to, though. Thanks. David
Well, I don’t know that it’s gone, but the release said through 9/7. I haven’t been to SIBL since Sept. And that day it was near closing, so the machine had already been switched off. I have no idea if it was popular or a success. But in those few minutes I was there, an obvious college student came up to the staff asking about having a book printed!
I could see this being a big hit at colleges and universities to overcome the usual textbook problems (ie – 50 students sign up for the course and the local bookshop only bothers to order in 10 textbooks). Not such a big problem in New York or London but if you live on the other side of the world….
Students could “buy” the book from the university which would pay a fee to the publisher. Of course Ebooks would be better, especially if software allowed the equivalent of sticky notes and lots of bookmarks. I live in hope!
I had seen mention of this device some time ago and thought it was a great idea (I still do). I hope that these devices do get widely deployed and used. Even if you only use public domain material, that is still a huge number of books from which to draw.
It would also make sense for publishers to allow their backlist to be printed this way, so the publisher wouldn’t have to maintain physical stock of that backlist. How often have you tried to find a book, only to find that it is out of print? If backlisted titles were available as POD, then the publisher would get the sale, instead of a used book store (assuming you could find the book at all).
As for college textbooks, I doubt that those publishers would be interested in POD. They have a captive market and can charge exorbitant prices, so why would they want to change? I agree that POD would be good for the student, but considering the money that the publishers and the college bookstores make on textbooks, I don’t see it happening.
I suspect that this greed is the same reason why we see so few college ebooks.
Has anyone on this (widely circulated) list ever seen this machine work? Does anyone have a book printed on it?
Bill, that’s exactly why I linked to the if:book post. POD is promising but not nirvana yet.
Thanks,
David
>>>If backlisted titles were available as POD, then the publisher would get the sale, instead of a used book store (assuming you could find the book at all).
From a reader’s point of view: heaven.
From a writer’s point of view: eternal in-print hell. I had to nuke my standing with a publisher to get out of a contract they interpreted as meaning I was their indentured servant. No no no. In-print must mean a *print run*, period. No locking up author’s right to one bastard publisher who doesn’t do marketing and won’t cut a royalty check for one-off sales!
David, have you ever addressed this issue here? Has anyone?
(Alan Moore is pissed as hell that Watchmen became popular and is constantly in print. All rights were to revert to him once it was out of print. If comics go POD, he will never regain his ownership!)
Ironically, machines such as this, that produce hard copies cheaply from digital sources, are the one thing that guarantees the success of ebooks in all fields.
Knowing that a purchased ebook can become a hard copy, enhances the value of purely digital works. It also cements in place the position of good electronic readers, for very much the same reason.
Given a price shift downwards of ebooks/epublishing buying more books, of a wider diversity, more often, underwritten by the fact that any can be made into a paper book if it is ever required value enhances epublishing enormously.
Now all we need is digital means to ensure authors, editors, etc.,. are paid directly for every sale, as it happens.
Such machines, expensive as they are are cheap, low capital investments compared to entire print works. The costs of means of production are shifting decidedly towards readers and authors, teachers and researchers – dispersing.
The second Gutenberg revolution looks well under way.
Mike: Betcha the Authors Guild would have some thoughts here. Meanwhile you’ll recall the Guild’s battle on a related matter with S&S. David
Yes, “Print on Demand” might change the interpretation of the term “Out of Print”. The Authors Guild was concerned about changes in Simon & Schuster’s boilerplate contract as David Rothman noted. In June there was an “apology” from Simon & Schuster:
The New York Times had an article about Simon & Schuster and the controversy over whether a book is “out of print”. The article is titled Publisher and Authors Parse a Term: Out of Print.
Thanks for those informative links. Writers would be absolutely *stupid* to agree to a revenue threshold. Price inflation would make that favor publishers. Best to go for a yearly — or even QUARTERLY — per-copy or even *sales* limits. And that limit must specify these are to *individual readers* not to institutions (if, say, MegaCorp buys 200 copies to distribute as free premiums or prize items, that should count as *one sale*). (Goddam, I hate that I have to think like a lawyer… another sign of the social fabric having been shredded by the sociopaths in power.)