Expresso Book Machines - Printing on Demand

“As many as 1m titles may soon be available through on-demand printing, including 600,000 titles being digitised by the publisher Lightning Source, available to be printed in one-off versions on the Espresso machine, as well as hundreds of thousands of “open-source” titles, such as classics with expired copyright.”Countless hours have been spent by look lovers searching in second hand bookstores and online inside the long tail of millions of back-catalogue books and pamphlets that are out of print. The second hand book industry is thriving and several towns such as Sedbergh and Hay on Wye have enjoyed a renaissance built on clusters of bookstores that lure browsers throughout the year. But perhaps the days of longingly poring over second hand book shelves are under threat from a technological innovation called Expresso Book Machine which claims to bring printing on demand into the mainstream of book retailing. This machine is featured in today’s Sunday Times.

“As many as 1m titles may soon be available through on-demand printing, including 600,000 titles being digitised by the publisher Lightning Source, available to be printed in one-off versions on the Espresso machine, as well as hundreds of thousands of “open-source” titles, such as classics with expired copyright.”

Here is a you tube video promoting the Expresso Book Machine. On Demand books make the grandiose claim that “What Gutenberg’s press did for Europe in the 15th century digitization and the Espresso Book Machine will do for the world tomorrow.”

I suspect that the final output will not reach the standards of finish that committed book-buyers will want and after all part of the genuine enjoyment of searching for a work is the eureak moment when you find it in a backstreet store. But the innovation may well provide a boost to self-publishing in the UK and it provides an interesting example of how technology is changing the elasticity of supply in the book publishing industry.