Espresso Book Machine said to be a hit at the University of Alberta—but would more focus on e-books be better?
The Espresso machine is a print-on-demand gizmo, a forerunner of what you may see someday at the corner FedEx Kinko’s. So is the demand out there for it? Todd Anderson, director of the University of Alberta Bookstore, is a believer, judging from PW’s write-up of his comments to a Book Industry Study Group seminar.
Cost of machine: $144,000.
Date of installation: November 1.
Number of books printed through early February: 2,364 books, totaling 537,754 pages, 1,500 more titles printed since then.
No, I haven’t analyzed the economics. I’d welcome thoughts on this. I still think the real action will be in e-books, but the POD alternative is great to have around for the holdouts. Meanwhile how about the eco angle of E vs. POD? Your other comparisons? Of course, for physical bookstores, on-site POD comes with an inherent appeal—less competition.
May 10th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
POD really does seem to be the best of both worlds: access to the vast catalogue of books in electronic form, in the traditional paper-based format. Probably its killer feature from the publishers’ point of view is the complete avoidance of DRM, since the purchaser gets a regular, non-copyable book.
I’ve got a Cybook, and it’s acceptable as an alternative, but when I tell people how much I paid for it, they’re aghast. Unless the price for e-book readers *really* comes down significantly, it’s going to remain niche. For the short- to medium-term (as in the next 10 years), I suspect that POD is going to establish a real foothold.
However, at 37, I may just be hopelessly old-fashioned.