Blackwell Launches Print-On-Demand Trial In the UK

krou writes "In Dec. 2006, we discussed the Espresso Book Machine. Well, on April 27 the bookseller Blackwell will launch a three-month trial of the machine in its Charing Cross Road branch in London as a 'print on demand' service for shoppers in an effort 'to consign to history the idea that you can walk into a bookshop and not find the book you want.' When the trial begins, it will be able to print any of some 400,000 titles; Blackwell's overall goal is to extend this to a million titles by the summer, and to spread out more machines to the rest of its sixty stores once it works out pricing. Currently, they charge shelf price for in-print books, and 10 pence per page for those out of print (about $55 for a 300-page book), but are analyzing customer behavior to get a better pricing model. Says Blackwell chief executive Andrew Hutchings: 'This could change bookselling fundamentally. It's giving the chance for smaller locations, independent booksellers, to have the opportunity to truly compete with big stock-holding shops and Amazon ... I like to think of it as the revitalization of the local bookshop industry.' Their website notes that in addition to getting books printed in-store, in future you will be able to order titles via their site. (They also mention that one of the titles you can print is the 1915 Oxford Poetry Book, which includes one of Tolkien's first poems, 'Goblin's Feet.')" You'll also be able to bring in your own book to print — two PDF files, one for the book block and one for the cover.

Comments

I for one will definitely use this

[Samuel Dravis]

I've always had trouble getting decent(ly priced) copies of old philosophy books and this would help me a great deal. I just wish they were testing this in the US...

Cost

[zxjio]

Is fifteen cents per page a normal on-demand charge? Books with nothing special about them will cost a few dollars to print conventionally. Blackwell's costs are higher I'm sure and they have the retail share as well. But still, $55 for a book that might otherwise retail for $10-15?

Re:Cost

[CastrTroy]

I wonder about the quality of the printing here too. If they print on demand, are they basically like spitting the book out of a laser printer? Are the books bound like a book you would buy off the shelf? What is the paper like. How long do you have to stand there while they print out your 300 pages? For out of print books, it might make a little sense, as there may be no other way to get the book, but for stuff you can still find on the shelf, I think this wouldn't be a good option.

Re:Cost

[Robert Plamondon]

Lighting Source (http://www.lightningsource.com) charges 1.5 cents per page plus 90 cents for the cover. They're the biggest US print-on-demand printer. A 300-page book would thus cost $5.40 to print. Normal industry rule-of-thumb is for retail price to be 5x the printing cost (retailer and wholesaler markup, royalties, risk, profit, etc.), or $27. Don't know why Blackwell's price is 2x this.

10 Years Behind

[Roblimo]

We've had the technology for in-store print on demand for at least a decade. Darn near every bookstore should be able to print you a copy of darn near every book in its catalog in a few minutes. The fact that this is not already common (at $10 or less per 300 pages) is due to stupid business decisions all through the publishing chain, not to lack of technology.

And at least 20 years ago a woman I knew who had a fairly large (and quite nice) butt wondered why we didn't have semi-automated make-to-order clothing stores in every mall, where someone like her would look at a style sample, say, "I'll take that style in fabric #402," and have them either measure her on the spot or used her measurements they already had on file, and make her exactly what she wanted, in a size that fit *her* body instead of an arbitrary measurement.

This was all technically feasible, including the beeper you'd carry around the mall while you did your other shopping, that would alert you when your new slacks were ready at the "Pants That Fit" store.

If nothing else, make or print to order gets rid of the remainder problem that plagues both book publishers and clothing manufacturers.

Re:10 Years Behind

[DerekLyons]

We've had the technology for in-store print on demand for at least a decade.

Sure, but the problem is the machinery is very expensive (which means the books are expensive on a per copy basis), the quality of the print is mediocre, and the quality of the binding is at best mediocre. I.E. having the technology to produce a product is meaningless when the price and quality are so badly mismatched, and there isn't significant demand to start with.
 
 

The fact that this is not already common (at $10 or less per 300 pages) is due to stupid business decisions all through the publishing chain, not to lack of technology.

No, it's due the quality/price mismatch discussed above and the fact that print-on-demand is a solution in search of a problem. The vast majority of out of print books that are in demand are trivially locatable via ABE, Alibris, or Amazon. There's little to no demand by the consumer for print on demand, despite it being rolled out to great hype on a fairly regular basis over the last fifteen years. (Disclaimer: I owned a used and rare bookstore during this period, as well as working closely with new bookstores.)

Re:10 Years Behind

[downix]

Why not, as the denim used in blue jeans is the same material also used in sailcloth.

From the TFA

[denzacar]

Our first attempt to print a book was not entirely successful.
The Times's choice - from a rather limited list, the full catalogue not being available until next week - was a 1919 volume called Heroes of Aviation, a book of stirring tales of such First World War flying aces as Albert Ball and someone called Georges Guynemer The Miraculous, which was unavailable for more than half a century until it was revived by an online publisher.

Thor Sigvaldason, co-founder of On Demand Books, the people behind the machine, clicked a mouse and it started making whirry, photocopier-like noises.
Laser-printed pages started flying out from the first half of the machine into the second, where the book is made.
It was clamped, glued, stuck to the cover, cut to size and spewed out of a letterbox-sized slot in the side of the machine - where it promptly fell apart.

"Things do happen," said Mr Sigvaldason, phlegmatically. "It is actually perfectly bound. It just doesn't have a cover."

Another attempt and, after 13 minutes - rather slow, but then there was a pause to empty the wastepaper box - a perfect, warm and rather industrial-smelling copy of Heroes of Aviation was in my hands, mint-fresh and looking just like a real book.
Which it was.

From the description of the process above - my (educated) guess is that the only real problem might be with the binding of the covers.
Mainly related to the number of pages. Below the certain number of pages there is probably not enough surface for glue to catch on that fast.
Even if it is a very fast binding glue, and there is enough surface to bind to - if the machine is meant to operate akin to a photocopier (quick and dirty) things like loose covers are bound to happen.

Is a day too much for a good book?

[RiotingPacifist]

While I'd consider this great for text books and manuals, is anybody ever that desperate to get a fiction book that may take weeks, that they can't wait a day? Almost every interdependent bookshop I know will take a day to get any book I can think of in a day (two if i turn up after their last phone call to HQ), at no extra charge (hell I've even messed up and ordered a book that it turned out I didn't buy and still didn't have to pay a thing), £23.40 is a bit much for foundation (RRP £6.99) and £41 for dune is defiantly excessive.

DVD's too

[AndyCanfield]

Wonderful! I can hardly wait until the DVD stores grab this idea! Here in Thailand, legal CD/DVD stores have a hundred titles, and pirate shops have thousands! You can never find what you want in the legal shops.