Q&A : The 'ATM for Books'

COO Tom Allen of On Demand Books/the Espresso Book Machine takes us behind the scenes of this book-at-a-time manufacturing device and its place in today's book market.

September 8, 2010 By Noelle Skodzinski

multipage

The Espresso Book Machine, essentially an ATM for books, shook the book industry in 2006 with the first beta installation of the book-at-a-time manufacturing machine at the World Bank InfoShop in Washington, D.C. A second machine was installed that same year at The Library of Alexandria in Egypt, which printed books in Arabic. Several installations followed in various countries in 2007.

Many in the industry wondered: Will this invention completely change the concept of book distribution and inventory? Will it solve issues of limited shelf space in bookstores and retail outlets? What quality can produced from such a machine?

It prints, binds and trims perfect-bound paperback books with color covers within minutes on-site, at point-of-sale. "A 300-page book can be produced in four minutes for a cost of consumables of a penny per page," according to the company's Web site.

The machine, now known as the Espresso Book Machine, stemmed from Jason Epstein's vision of a device that would make any book accessible anywhere, whether in a bookstore, a coffee shop, aboard a cruise ship, in a hotel, etc.

Epstein, who formerly served as an editorial director for Random House for 40 years, joined forces with Jeff Marsh, who in 1999 already had designed a prototype of such a machine. Epstein then partnered with Dane Neller to found On Demand Books in 2003, to further develop Marsh's machine and bring it to the global marketplace, with the help of Marsh in research, development and design.

Named the Espresso Book Machine (EBM), Epstein and Marsh's device was named on Time magazine’s “Best Inventions of 2007” list, and in the past few years, the number of installations has grown significantly.

On Demand Books COO Tom Allen will be speaking at the session "Your Future On-demand: What You Need to Know About the Future in POD and Book-at-a-Time Printing," during the 2010 Publishing Business Virtual Conference & Expo, Sept. 16. Here, he discusses with Publishing Business Insider his perspective on the growth of the EBM, its potential in the evolving book publishing marketplace, and more.  

Insider: How many Espresso Book Machines are currrently installed worldwide? How many are in the U.S.? How does this compare to the number of installations last year?