Technology Turns Indie Bookstores Into Instant Paperback Print Publishers



Real Books in Real Time

 How about a tech that would allow you to publish a printed book instantly at point of purchase/use ? A tech that had a huge virtual catalog of established titles as well as the means for new authors to instantly print books and get physical shelf space ?

I first reported on the Espresso Book Machine last month on the Publishing/Writing: Insights, News, Intrigue Blog. Take a peek for background info.

You are going to love this latest update from the Associated Press (AP) with some accompanying statistics and analytics and a neat real life example demonstrating how this works:

Writers embrace self-publishing through instant publishing machine

Clare Dickens only wanted to share her story to help others. But in the process, she became a successful independent author — with the help of a local bookstore and its instant publishing machine.

Dickens wrote "A Dangerous Gift" with her son Titus, a memoir of their life dealing with his bipolar disorder. She completed the novel after he took his own life at the age of 25 in 2006.

Though Dickens found a publisher in Iceland to release the book in 2007, she still wanted a broader reach. The Espresso Book Machine at Politics and Prose in the District of Columbia allowed her to bring the memoir to local bookshelves and beyond earlier this year.

Her book has since become the best-selling, self-published title at the local bookstore and its website.

"I didn't expect to sell any at all," Dickens said. "I didn't want to be a best-seller. It's really about getting my son's story out there and helping other people."

Self-publishing has been made easier since the Espresso Book Machine by On Demand Books debuted in 2006. The machine also can make copies of out-of-print editions.

The first machine was installed briefly at the World Bank's bookstore. Through a partnership with Xerox, the company now has machines in about 70 bookstores and libraries across the world including London; Tokyo; Amsterdam; Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; Melbourne, Australia; and Alexandria, Egypt.

Thor Sigvaldason, chief technology officer of New York-based On Demand Books, said the technology can help book retailers twofold.

"It can, potentially, give them a huge virtual inventory so they can have as many books as Amazon, all in a little bookstore," he said. "It turns independent bookstores into places to get books published. It's a new thing for the bookstore to do: not just sell books, but actually create books."

Dickens' book costs $10.38 to print and retails for $16. Bill Leggett, a bookseller who co-manages the machine, said about a dozen copies are sold a month. "That's better than a lot of authors who have major publishers," he said.

Politics and Prose has produced almost 5,000 paperback books — some in as little as five minutes — since receiving the book machine nicknamed "Opus" last November. Leggett said about 90 percent of the books printed on the machine are self-published works by local authors.

The others are out-of-print editions, millions of titles available in the public domain like Google Books, and digital formats licensed out through major publishers including Harper Collins.

Alfred Morgan Jr. was able to get a copy of his father's out-of-print 1923 aviation guide, "How to Build a 20-foot Bi-Plane Glider," printed on the machine for $8. The volume was on Google Books.

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The Difference Between a Bookseller and a Corp. that Sells Books

The invasion of the new, fast-paced, glittering, technological world has presented circumstances forcing many of the large, colder and impersonal big-box bookstores out of business...Oddly enough, it was the beginning of this tech invasion that brought the big chains into existence in the first place. Maybe you can, afterall, get too much of a thing.

And now the singularly unique, personalized, familiar and intimate ambiance of the independent bookstores is beckoning us back...offering book-lovers, authors, scholars and readers a warmer refuge to return to.

Even though some indies did fail in the initial technology rush, many survived...and it looks like they will survive the big chains, too...I never thought they wouldn't.

The reason the indies will survive is because they do, indeed, have soul.

Edward McClelland has an interesting piece for Salon.com RE the bankruptcy of big-box Borders bookstore that further illustrates my point:

How Borders lost its soul

The store went from a true alternative to a big-box bore. Now, it's the independent shops who come out the winners

When I was a teenager, there were two off-campus bookstores that shaped my reading life. The first was Jocundry's, in East Lansing, Mich., which I discovered when I was in high school. I could always go there for a copy of Michael Moore's alternative newspaper, the Michigan Voice, or a book by George Bernard Shaw or Friedrich Nietzsche, two authors I liked to be seen reading. A bearded Michigan State University historian was always sitting inside the front door of Jocundry's with his dog, reading The New York Times.

The second was Borders, the chain bookseller that declared bankruptcy on Wednesday. As a freshman at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, I was awed by the sight of the original Borders, on State Street. Never in my 18 years had I seen two stories of books. I spent nearly as much time reading at Borders as I spent reading in class while my professors lectured. There was nothing to do at Borders but read. In the mid-1980s, a coffee shop was still a diner that served pancakes until 11 a.m.

A decade later, as Borders spread nationwide, I was as excited as a Starbucks drinker from Seattle. In those years, on the cusp of the World Wide Web, I was living in a small industrial city in Central Illinois. Its only literary outlets were a newsstand, whose owner constantly reminded me he wasn't running a library, and a Waldenbooks at the Hickory Point Mall. When I wanted a book of short stories by V.S. Pritchett, I ordered it through a clerk, and waited two weeks. But with Borders invading shopping malls in Erie and Wichita and Normal, everyone in America could have the same instant access to V.S. Pritchett that I'd enjoyed in Ann Arbor.

Unfortunately, the ascendancy of the mega-bookstores ended up destroying Jocundry's, and its dog-friendly atmosphere. Barnes & Noble took over an empty supermarket a few miles from Michigan State's campus. Jocundry's moved into a bigger space to compete with B&N's inventory. The expense ruined them. Jocundry's closed in 2001. Soon after, Barnes & Noble moved into downtown East Lansing, claiming its independent rival's turf.

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Dueling Bookstores - High Noon in Westhampton Beach

I could NOT BELIEVE that some of the residents of this small village of Westhampton Beach, New York (approx. 2000 population without tourists) could behave with such malicious, hateful behavior over a second indie bookstore opening in their town...

It's nice to be loyal to an existing owner, but damn, educated people do NOT go into a new book store and stick gum between the pages of new books! They all should be charged to the max for willful destruction of property and anything else the authorities can throw at them! Makes you wonder what these idiots have been reading lately?

Julie Bosman wrote this in the New York Times about the dueling bookstores:

Ever since Books & Books opened its doors on Main Street here last month, it has missed out on some of the adulation usually reserved for new independent bookstores in the age of Amazon.

Several storeowners nearby have ordered their staffs not to shop there. Indignant older women have marched inside the bookstore to yell at employees. And someone, or perhaps several someones, may have sneakily placed used chewing gum between the pages of new books.

The animosity seems to have stemmed from the fact that Books & Books moved in when there was already an independent bookstore, the Open Book, around the corner. And as some people saw it, there was no room for another one.

Terry Lucas, a librarian and the owner of the Open Book, which she founded in 1999, said Books & Books is on a course to put her already struggling store out of business.

The dueling bookstores have caused a bit of summer drama in this quiet, laid-back town on the south fork of Long Island, where much of the commercial activity happens on Main Street, a tidy stretch lined with restaurants, real estate offices and boutiques.

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