By Gloria Quintanilla 2012 felt like a decisive year for print. E-Book sales surpassed print book sales on Amazon for the first time, and widely-read publications like Newsweek decided to give up on print media altogether, and instead to transition fully into digital publishing. All the while, pundits are still debating if there is a future for print in a world dominated by digital formats. Similar discussions are going on between book lovers and authors, who are worried about the publishing industry being ill equipped to respond to their demands. So here's the question: Is it possible to have the best of both worlds? Can...

South African IT news site IT Web reports that the University of Johannesburg has just acquired an Espresso Book Machine of its very own. Most of the article summarizes what we already well know about the print-on-demand machine and its uses for printing and binding store-quality paperbacks in mere minutes, but it does quote On Demand Books as projecting over 150 machines installed world-wide by the end of 2012. It also links to a Guardian article from 2009 in which the head of marketing for UK bookstore chain Blackwell suggested that the Espresso “has the potential to be the...

One of the biggest problems with the EBM is the lack of titles in its catalog.  Now, Publishers Weekly is reporting that Bookmasters will make its distribution clients' more than 50K POD titles available through the EBM under an agreement with On Demand Books. From the press release: Bookmasters, Inc. and On Demand Books, the company behind the  Espresso Book Machine® (EBM), have entered into an agreement to enable a wide array of  Bookmasters’ distribution clients’ titles to be available through EBM’s fast growing “digital-to-print at retail” sales channel. According to Larry Bennett, Bookmasters’ President of Distribution Services, “this agreement will  allow our...

From CBS New York (1010 WINS): “It allows people to print a book that maybe they can’t otherwise get, some obscure title that happens to be in the public domain. This machine brings to our collection an additional eight million titles that are in the public domain or that are copyrighted but the publishers are allowing to be a part of our library,” Linda Johnson, President of the Brooklyn Public Library told 1010 WINS. [Clip] Another great option that users have when using the machine is to print and publish their own work. “People are doing quite a lot of self-publishing,” Johnson said. “Because...

From Shelf Awareness: HarperCollins today is launching its Comprehensive Backlist Program that will enable independent bookstores with Espresso Book Machines to promote much of the company's backlist through a combination of "a core assortment" of printed books on the shelves and in-store "digital-to-print at retail." The program encompasses thousands of adult trade paperback titles and some YA paperbacks. For now, illustrated books, picture books and some other titles are not included.The program officially begins at 1 p.m. Eastern time, when the initial nine participating stores will simultaneously print a copy of Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett. (Patchett became an independent...

From Goodreader: In the on-going debate over print versus digital, Ingram Content Group has found a way to give a leg-up to print books through its print-on-demand model. Like many other models of kiosk-based in store selection, printing, and binding, Ingram allows users to only print those titles that are necessary at the point of purchase. Stores do not need to maintain a costly stock of inventory and the costs of shipping are alleviated for the publisher and the consumer. Now, Ingram has developed its Global Connect program to bring the same ease of purchase ...

From the Sydney Morning Herald: DYMOCKS, the largest bookshop chain in Australia, is adding a publishing arm to its business. It plans to launch a web-based operation in October to entice local authors keen to see their books in print. D Publishing, will upload manuscripts to be turned into a ''properly laid-out publishable book'' and offer editing, design, production and printing of finished books for sale at dymocks.com.au. Some authors who opt for the full service might see their books on the shelves of Dymocks bookshops. The chain has 70 shops across the country and claims 17...

Max Franke of the German print-on-demand company epubli says that many German publishers are too risk averse and controlling when it comes to ebooks, and as a result they miss out on opportunities. They take too long to bring new products to market, he says, and take the wrong approach to DRM and social media. German has a very rich vocabulary for describing power relationships. Obrigkeitsgläubigkeit — belief in authorities — is a problem for the book business, especially when it’s hard for publishing industry leaders to accept that digitization has changed everything, that authors now have the opportunity to successfully...

We've featured several stories about the web-connected print-on-demand Espresso Book Machine (EBM), which can access millions of digital books and create print versions in minutes. Most of those stories, however, are light on actual user reviews, so I was happy to stumble across this detailed summary of "the good, the bad, and the sexy" qualities of the EBM from librarian Rick Anderson at The Scholarly Kitchen. His library at the University of Utah has had an EBM for two years now, and he's put together an insightful list of what works and what still needs work. You should read the full...

Egypt's Library of Alexandria has announced that it's placed 19,000 works from its collection on the Espresso Book Machine (EBM) network, and plans to add another 150,000 Arabic titles soon. The library operates three EBMs, but this also means people around the world can print replicas of the library's titles from their nearest EBM. You can read the press release on On Demand Books' News page. Via INFOdocket...

From the press release: Amazon.co.jp today announced a new Print-on-Demand (POD) program for Books, which dramatically expands the selection of titles available to customers and offers publishers a cost-effective way to make the broadest possible range of their authors’ titles available. Using POD technology, Amazon.co.jp can rapidly print and ship a single book in response to a customer’s order. Titles in the program will always be in-stock, allowing customers to benefit from Amazon.co.jp’s shipping offers such as Amazon Prime and Same Day Delivery. There are currently over 600,000 titles available for printing from Amazon.co.jp. Amazon.co.jp POD provides a cost-effective way for publishers to...

The Bookseller reports that a Nielsen Book study shows that the number of new books being published every year is steadily rising, due largely to the influence of digital and print-on-demand publishing. Of course, this figure comes from the ISBNs that Nielsen issues; if the number of books published without ISBNs (offered for sale directly via websites, local stores, or other means) has also increased, that might make it even greater. This puts me in mind of the old argument about how the Internet has “killed” the music industry, and the oft-heard retort that, no, it’s just hurting the...