The Espresso Book Machine prints paperback books in about three to five minutes. (Photo by Suzanne Chapman)
Books are changing. Just like the music industry, books are going digital.
There are already those digital books you can read on a little handheld
device. Now there’s a machine that will print the book you want from a
digital file while you wait. Rebecca Williams reports the machine’s creators
say it could transform the publishing industry by making it a lot less
wasteful:
Transcript
Books are changing. Just like the music industry, books are going digital.
There are already those digital books you can read on a little handheld
device. Now there’s a machine that will print the book you want from a
digital file while you wait. Rebecca Williams reports the machine’s creators
say it could transform the publishing industry by making it a lot less
wasteful:
The makers of the Espresso Book Machine say it’s like an ATM for books. It
prints paperback books in about three to five minutes.
It’s a big metal and glass contraption with lots of little robotic parts on the
inside. Maria Bonn at the University of Michigan Library is showing me how
hers works. With a click of a mouse, she’s chosen a book file, and the thing
kicks into action.
(sound of a printer)
“This is standard laser printing on both sides of the paper… (TAP TAP TAP)
That tap, tap you hear is pages being lined up and put all into place.”
Everything happens so fast. I mean, I blink and it’s already printed the color
cover. Then the pages get rolled over this pot of orange glue, stuck to the
cover, and the whole thing gets trimmed down.
“You have to catch the book (SND of book dropping out) oops, which I
failed to do, and there’s your book!”
And just like that, I have my very own copy of “Stories of Ye Olden Time”
from 1895.
“It’s pretty indistinguishable from a paperbound book in a book store.”
And that’s exactly the idea.
Dane Neller heads up On Demand Books. It’s the company that makes the
machine and the software system behind it.
“Our overall vision is a radically decentralized marketplace where these
machines will be installed – could be coffee shops, libraries, bookstores,
cruise ships.”
There aren’t a lot of these things around yet. Just about 15 libraries and
bookstores have the machine. But there are about a million book titles
ready to go. And– if the book’s under copyright, the system automatically
sends off royalties to the right people. Dane Neller says these machines
could make the publishing industry more efficient.
“Most of the book industry is wasteful in that publishers built into their
model an oversupply of books because they factor it into their sales price.
Especially on the trade side, the bestsellers and books the general public
buys – typically that represents a 33 to 40% return factor.”
That means about 4 out of 10 books don’t get sold at bookstores. So they
get shipped back to publishers. Then they might get shipped out again to
somewhere like Costco, or Sam’s Club, or recycled – but they’re often
thrown away or burned.
Dane Neller says the book machine can stop all that extra printing and
shipping and waste – because you only print what you sell.
But he says bookstores will always need lots of copies of the big bestsellers
on hand.
“It will not replace centralized production because there will always be a
need to produce large quantities of single titles, the Danielle Steeles, the
large romance novels, that’s still much more efficiently done centrally. But
everything else can be done decentrally.”
So, when I walk into a bookstore in the future, there might be big stacks of
bestsellers, and then a few book machines – but not a lot of other books to
look at.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I don’t know what I want when I
walk in. I like to see what catches my eye.
Cynthia Ransley manages the Shaman Drum Bookshop. She says maybe the
book machines will help her industry make more money and be more
efficient.
But she says she can’t imagine not having a physical store where you can
spend hours just looking around.
“I think the book as an object is still a tangible part of people’s lives and
that’s where bookstores like ours really, you know, we have tons of
beautiful books and the way cover art has been improving and it becomes a
piece of art in and of itself.”
And that might never change. But what if you really need a book and it’s
out of print? Sometime in the near future you could go to a bookstore, do
a search, and just print it out.
For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.
