Most of us writers talk about how quickly Print-on-Demand publishers can turn out a finished book, marvelling at the 6-week turn-around. Once set up, then book copies can be printed and delivered within days.
But what about delivery in THREE MINUTES?
Word is beginning to spread about a new technology developed by On Demand Books. This is a machine which allows any user to “order” a book with the punch of some buttons and receive delivery of the printed and bound paperback in 3-4 minutes. Now here’s a truly revolutionary development. The On Demand Books website describes the techology this way:
On Demand Books LLC. is planning to become the first company to globally deploy a low cost, totally automatic book machine (The Espresso Book Machine), which can produce 15 – 20 library quality paperback books per hour, in any language, in quantities of one, without any human intervention.
The technology is the dream of Jason Epstein, a publisher for 40 years, serving as editorial director of Random House and founder of Anchor Press and the New York Review of Books. He is now in retirement pursuing his dream. Epstein already has several of his Expresso Book Machines deployed in pilot locations: The World Bank’s InfoCenter, the New York Public Library and the Library of Alexandria, Egypt. [For a full account of Epstein's remarkable career and his dreams, see the January 2005 issue of MIT's Technology Review.]
Initially the Book Machine will be offering public domain books, affiliating with the Open Content Alliance and its database of over 200,000 titles. [I encourage you to click on the Alliance link -- the site is packed with important information for writers and readers alike.]
However, Epstein envisions application by individual writers. In Technology Review, Epstein declares:
Enthusiasts for any activity under the sun, booksellers, publishers, and eventually authors themselves will post digital files of texts on their sites. At their computers, readers will select books from an infinite library of many languages and transmit them to the nearest book machines, where they will collect the printed books at their convenience.
Maybe the future of the printed book remains bright.
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