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Google Offering Print Versions of Online Books

Posted by timothy on from the ungreppable-format dept.

carluva writes "Google is teaming up with On Demand Books to offer paperback versions of its collection of over 2 million public domain books. The books will be able to be printed using ODB's Espresso Book Machine, which is already in use at several book stores and libraries and can print and bind a complete, paperback copy of a 300-page book in less than 5 minutes. Google and ODB each get $1 in royalties per book sold (Google has pledged to donate its proceeds to charities and nonprofit organizations). See also ODB's PDF press release."

2 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Public domain!!! by Brandee07 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There are LOTS of public domain books that are very hard to get a hold of in paper form. No publisher is going to reprint 200 year old books on obscure topics for which there is a market of 20 people. This makes those books accessible to those that need them, without the economies of scale that publishers rely on.

    And pending the much-debated acquisition by Google of orphan books, they'll be a lot more obscure out-of-print books seeing life again.

  2. Re:Now *that's* circular by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    One old, fragile book just became a dozen, semi-decent copies in the hands of those who actually value that information.

    Looks good from where I am sitting.