On Demand Books Announces the New Espresso Book Machine 2.0

November 21, 2008 By Peter Beisser

multipage

According to Neller, the newly released machine will print books—from 40 to 830 pages—for a penny a page.

Toby Green, head of publishing for the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), one of the world’s largest publishers in the fields of economics and public policy, says it has reaped the benefits of partnering with On Demand on an earlier model of the Espresso Book Machine.

"Being a specialist publisher with a global audience, anything that cuts Time-to-market has to be a good thing," Green says. "For example, it currently takes us around six weeks to get a book to market in Australia from our base in Paris. Since many of our books get coverage in global media, like the Financial Times, you can imagine this causes a good deal of customer frustration—not to mention lost sales. Since demand for our titles is too small in each market to justify the cost of offset printing locally, the arrival of these machines is, quite frankly, a godsend."

All publishers need to do to have their titles available on the Espresso Book Machine is to provide a PDF of the titles to be printed, Neller says.

For book retailers, the technology appears to have received high marks so far, too. Todd Anderson, of the University of Alberta Bookstore, says the store has recouped its initial investment of its Espresso Book Machine in just the first year of use.

"When we first looked at the Espresso, we looked at our business to determine how we would use the machine," says Anderson. "We came up with three very distinct business opportunities that we could use the Espresso for and 14 different lines of business within those strategies: cost savings for students, for-profit publications and library usage. Since turning the Espresso on in November of 2007, every single one of these lines of business has occurred, some more than others."

Neller says this next year will be an important one for the Espresso Book Machine as On Demand Books plans to expand to incorporate more publishing and retail partners into its fold. On Demand already has selected partners to serve as beta test sites for the Espresso Book Machine 2.0, including the McGill University Library in Montreal, and the University of Waterloo Bookstore in Waterloo, Ontario. In addition, the University of Pennsylvania Library in Philadelphia is in consideration for a beta test site. 

Neller says he expects the machine will start to hit critical mass in the next 24 months.

"2009 will be an important year for us and for the Espresso Book Machine," he says. "Next year will see a lot of growth—double-digit growth. 2010 will be a growth year, too. We're looking for more content and more sites [for the machine]."

To view a video of the Espresso Book Machine in action, visit http://www.ondemandbooks.com/video2.htm