As most of you know, ABC has the first two Espresso Book Machines in Europe. We might have been too-early adoptors (November 2010) but are continually assured that printing books locally on the day they are desired, is so logical and so sustainable, that it’s only a matter of time before EBMs become just as popular as photocopiers. As publishers realize the economies of releasing their international rights to us to make out-of-stock books on the spot, the number of available titles will quickly increase.
Every day, authors send us their manuscripts by email: novels, memoirs, dissertations, school projects, poetry. Our dedicated EBM operators check the format and answer the author right away, making arrangements to print how ever few copies are desired (the minimum is just one copy! It’s so unbelievable, we need to repeat the news, demonstrate the machine, share the joy that authors feel as the very first copy of their book rolls down the chute!
We follow the digitalization process closely – and would like to share some of the articles which appear elsewhere with you from time to time, with permission from their authors.
Our first post in this new section on Espresso Book Machine News was written by Jason Epstein, nestor of American publishing renewal and co-founder of On Demand Books, “mother” of the Espresso Book Machine and associated software and licensing programming. We think it’s important enough to reproduce entirely from the New York Review website. Let us know if you like or dislike it – let’s discuss it online or face to face. We can organize an evening about the future of books during and after this huge digital conversion. What do you think?
How Books Will Survive Amazon
by Jason Epstein.
Originally published by www.nybooks.com on April 26th, 2012.