Espresso Book Machine
Encyclopedia
The Espresso Book Machine (EBM) is a print on demand
(POD) machine that prints, collates, covers, and binds a single book in a few minutes.
The EBM is small enough to fit in a retail book store or small library room, and as such it is targeted at retail and library markets. The EBM can potentially allow readers to obtain any book title, even books that are out of print
. The machine takes as input a PDF file and prints, binds, and trims the reader’s selection as a paperback book.
, veteran editor of such writers as Norman Mailer
, Philip Roth
and Gore Vidal
, gave a series of lectures in 1999 in which he reflected on his experiences in publishing. Epstein mentioned in his speech that a future was possible in which customers would be able to print an out-of-stock title on the spot, if a book-printing machine could be made that would fit in a store. At the time, Jeff Marsh, a St Louis engineer and inventor, had already constructed a prototype book printer that could both photocopy and book-bind. A friend of Marsh, present on one of the lectures, informed Epstein. The editor together with Dane Neller, former President and CEO of Dean and Deluca, licensed Marsh's invention and founded On Demand Books.
's Science, Industry and Business Library. For a month, the public was allowed to test the machine by printing free copies of such public domain
classics as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
by Mark Twain
, "Moby-Dick
" by Herman Melville
, "A Christmas Carol
" by Charles Dickens
, and "Songs of Innocence" by William Blake
. The public domain titles were provided by the Open Content Alliance
(OCA), a non-profit organization with a database of over 200,000 titles.
, the world's largest POD printer and a subsidiary of Ingram Book Company, the largest distributor in the US. Once a book is uploaded into the Lightning Source system, the publisher need only check a single box (at the end of the set up pages) to add the book to the Espresso channel.
, the Boxcar and Caboose Bookstore in St. Johnsbury, Vermont
, the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, Vermont and the Open Content Alliance in San Francisco. Other locations include the University of Missouri
, the Harvard Book Store
, the University of Washington Bookstore in Seattle, Third Place Books in Seattle, the University of Michigan Shapiro Undergraduate Library, the University of Arizona Bookstore, the Brigham Young University
Bookstore and the Grace Mellman Community Library (part of the Riverside County Library System, Riverside County, California). Mizzou Media at the University of Missouri
operates an Espresso Book Machine version 2.0.
, Titles McMaster University
Bookstore, University of Waterloo
Bookstore
McGill University Library
and the
University of Toronto
Bookstore.
Simon Fraser University
Bookstore.
However, its success was short-lived and the machine was removed in late 2009.
A newer version of the Espresso Book Machine (2.0) has now been installed at the University of Melbourne.
In April 2009, an Espresso Book Machine was installed with great fanfare in the Charing Cross Road branch of Blackwell's
book store in London. Blackwell's also announced that they plan to install the machine across their 60 UK stores.
Print on demand
Print on demand , sometimes called, in error, publish on demand, is a printing technology and business process in which new copies of a book are not printed until an order has been received...
(POD) machine that prints, collates, covers, and binds a single book in a few minutes.
The EBM is small enough to fit in a retail book store or small library room, and as such it is targeted at retail and library markets. The EBM can potentially allow readers to obtain any book title, even books that are out of print
Out of print
Out of print refers to an item, typically a book , but can include any print or visual media or sound recording, that is in the state of no longer being published....
. The machine takes as input a PDF file and prints, binds, and trims the reader’s selection as a paperback book.
History
Jason EpsteinJason Epstein
Jason Epstein is an American editor and publisher.A 1949 graduate of Columbia College of Columbia University, Epstein was hired by Bennett Cerf at Random House, where he was the editorial director for forty years. He was responsible for the Vintage paperbacks, which published such authors as...
, veteran editor of such writers as Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
, Philip Roth
Philip Roth
Philip Milton Roth is an American novelist. He gained fame with the 1959 novella Goodbye, Columbus, an irreverent and humorous portrait of Jewish-American life that earned him a National Book Award...
and Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...
, gave a series of lectures in 1999 in which he reflected on his experiences in publishing. Epstein mentioned in his speech that a future was possible in which customers would be able to print an out-of-stock title on the spot, if a book-printing machine could be made that would fit in a store. At the time, Jeff Marsh, a St Louis engineer and inventor, had already constructed a prototype book printer that could both photocopy and book-bind. A friend of Marsh, present on one of the lectures, informed Epstein. The editor together with Dane Neller, former President and CEO of Dean and Deluca, licensed Marsh's invention and founded On Demand Books.
The first EBM
The first Espresso Book Machine was installed and demonstrated June 21 2007 at the New York Public LibraryNew York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
's Science, Industry and Business Library. For a month, the public was allowed to test the machine by printing free copies of such public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
classics as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain is an 1876 novel about a young boy growing up along the Mississippi River. The story is set in the Town of "St...
by Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
, "Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, was written by American author Herman Melville and first published in 1851. It is considered by some to be a Great American Novel and a treasure of world literature. The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod,...
" by Herman Melville
Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
, "A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of...
" by Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
, and "Songs of Innocence" by William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
. The public domain titles were provided by the Open Content Alliance
Open Content Alliance
The Open Content Alliance is a consortium of organizations contributing to a permanent, publicly accessible archive of digitized texts. Its creation was announced in October 2005 by Yahoo!, the Internet Archive, the University of California, the University of Toronto and others...
(OCA), a non-profit organization with a database of over 200,000 titles.
Economic consequences
The direct-to-consumer model of the EBM eliminates shipping, warehousing, returns and pulping of unsold books, and allows simultaneous global availability of millions of new and backlist titles. These characteristics may in the future lower prices to consumers and libraries, and allow greater royalties and profits to authors and publishers.Distribution
A book can be made available for distribution via the EBM network by placing it with Lightning SourceLightning Source
Lightning Source is a subsidiary of leading U.S. publishing services company Saab Content Group. The company is the leading printer and distributor of print-on-demand books. Originally incorporated in 1997 as Lightning Print Inc., the company is headquartered in La Vergne, Tennessee. Its UK...
, the world's largest POD printer and a subsidiary of Ingram Book Company, the largest distributor in the US. Once a book is uploaded into the Lightning Source system, the publisher need only check a single box (at the end of the set up pages) to add the book to the Espresso channel.
In the United States
Beta versions of the EBM are placed at the World Bank Infoshop in Washington, DC . Additional EBMs were made available to the public in the fall of 2007 at the New Orleans Public LibraryNew Orleans Public Library
The New Orleans Public Library is the public library service of the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States.-History:The system began in 1896 as the Fisk Free and Public Library in a building on Lafayette Square...
, the Boxcar and Caboose Bookstore in St. Johnsbury, Vermont
St. Johnsbury, Vermont
St. Johnsbury is the shire town of Caledonia County, Vermont, United States. The population was 7,571 at the 2000 census. St. Johnsbury is located approximately northwest of the Connecticut River and south of the Canadian border.St...
, the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, Vermont and the Open Content Alliance in San Francisco. Other locations include the University of Missouri
University of Missouri
The University of Missouri System is a state university system providing centralized administration for four universities, a health care system, an extension program, five research and technology parks, and a publishing press. More than 64,000 students are currently enrolled at its four campuses...
, the Harvard Book Store
Harvard Book Store
Harvard Book Store is an independent and locally owned seller of used, new, and bargain books in Cambridge's Harvard Square.Harvard Book Store was established in 1932 by Mark Kramer, father of longtime owner Frank Kramer, and originally sold used textbooks to students.Family-owned for over...
, the University of Washington Bookstore in Seattle, Third Place Books in Seattle, the University of Michigan Shapiro Undergraduate Library, the University of Arizona Bookstore, the Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University is a private university located in Provo, Utah. It is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , and is the United States' largest religious university and third-largest private university.Approximately 98% of the university's 34,000 students...
Bookstore and the Grace Mellman Community Library (part of the Riverside County Library System, Riverside County, California). Mizzou Media at the University of Missouri
University of Missouri
The University of Missouri System is a state university system providing centralized administration for four universities, a health care system, an extension program, five research and technology parks, and a publishing press. More than 64,000 students are currently enrolled at its four campuses...
operates an Espresso Book Machine version 2.0.
In Canada
An EBM has been installed at the University of AlbertaUniversity of Alberta
The University of Alberta is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta and Henry Marshall Tory, its first president, it is widely recognized as one of the best universities in Canada...
, Titles McMaster University
McMaster University
McMaster University is a public research university whose main campus is located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land in the residential neighbourhood of Westdale, adjacent to Hamilton's Royal Botanical Gardens...
Bookstore, University of Waterloo
University of Waterloo
The University of Waterloo is a comprehensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles, and has since grown to an institution of more than 30,000 students, faculty, and staff...
Bookstore
McGill University Library
McGill University Library
McGill University Library is the library system of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It comprises 13 branch libraries, located on the downtown Montreal and Macdonald campuses, holding over 6 million items...
and the
University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
Bookstore.
Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University is a Canadian public research university in British Columbia with its main campus on Burnaby Mountain in Burnaby, and satellite campuses in Vancouver and Surrey. The main campus in Burnaby, located from downtown Vancouver, was established in 1965 and has more than 34,000...
Bookstore.
In Australia
In September 2008, was installed at Angus & Robertson in Melbourne, Australia by the Central Book Services / DA Group.However, its success was short-lived and the machine was removed in late 2009.
A newer version of the Espresso Book Machine (2.0) has now been installed at the University of Melbourne.
In the UK
In September 2008, the first Espresso Book Machine was installed in the UK. Newsstand, a London based company, uses the machinery to print single copy book runs for publishers and authors.In April 2009, an Espresso Book Machine was installed with great fanfare in the Charing Cross Road branch of Blackwell's
Blackwell's
Blackwell UK Ltd is a national chain of bookshops, online retail, mail order and library supply services in the United Kingdom, which has an annual turnover of £74 million...
book store in London. Blackwell's also announced that they plan to install the machine across their 60 UK stores.
In the Netherlands
In November 2010 the American Book Center in Amsterdam installed the first ever Espresso Book Machine in the Netherlands and continental Europe. A second machine was installed in The American Book Center in The Hague in March 2011.External links
- On Demand Books site
- McMaster University's Titles On Demand website
- University of Melbourne Custom Book Centre website
- Espresso Book Machine at Lightning SourceLightning SourceLightning Source is a subsidiary of leading U.S. publishing services company Saab Content Group. The company is the leading printer and distributor of print-on-demand books. Originally incorporated in 1997 as Lightning Print Inc., the company is headquartered in La Vergne, Tennessee. Its UK...
- On Demand Books Espresso Book Machine Location Map