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Google Offering Print Versions of Online Books
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."
How long before google starts a service to provide scanned copies of these new dead tree versions online and indexed?
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.
Given your user name I image your Palm is very important.
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ODB...still getting paid.
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I wonder if they will have any more resolution than the PDFs you can get from their online service. Some of the books have technical drawings that could use ahout 50 - 75 more DPI. Does anyone know if they were scanned in a higher native resolution than what they present online?
This is a wonderful thing. It may make it much easier to publish new, low circulation books as well, since you don't need to reach a critical threshold sales number to make it worth printing. Of course, a 'book' (as in the physical form) may become obsolete over the next few decades as old curmudgeons like me who like reading printed material far more than reading off a screen drop off...
Oh good, another reason to refuse to get an e-book reader.
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Given your user name, I don't want to imagine anything about you, lest I become a gibbering heap of slag-brained insanity.
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I'm one of those people that greatly savors a paper book. I have a nice little library of books that I keep around on two bookcases, and every now and then I'll browse over the shelves and go "Oh yea, I haven't read this one in 10 years, it deserves another go round." I also have a good sized collection of oversized art and photography books. These are particularly well suited to a permanent print format.
The thing is, if a major catastrophic event breaks down modern civilization, little to none of this electronic stuff is going to survive. There will be a big black hole, made especially worse with anything that was encrypted with DRM.
Think about things from antiquity that have survived to modern day - very well stored paper books, scrolls and things made out of clay, granite, stone and marble and very occasionally steel. That's about it.
It's not clear what Google is planning on charging...
FTA, about $8 per book (including the pair of $1 fees going to ODB and Google), although a definite price hasn't been set.
$8 seems pretty fair to me...
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Meanwhile google's doing the smartest move: they're donating their $1 to charity. So both a: doing a good cause and b: earning themselves a tax break.
That's what I call smart capitalism.
I do think the book deal needs to have some of the issues kinked out, but overall google is taking this in a very smart way.
I can download public domain books to my Palm.
In case you missed it, this is for people who prefer to read from paper over reading from a screen.
I see your Palm and raise you my iPhone. I can download books to that and have a very nifty app for doing so without having to turn pages (the phone's tilt controls the speed of the scroll) but to be honest I'm more inclined to read paper books. There's just something distracting about it being on a screen.
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It's a dumb way to make money, but google has enough of it. it is a good way to buy reputation capital as well as enforcing their company mission of making information accessible and not being evil.