Espresso Book Machines Go Urban With Akashic Books

New York, NY (7/1) –On Demand Books, the company behind the Espresso Book Machine, has signed with Akashic Books to make their titles available via the EBM’s unique at point-of-sale channel.

“Akashic Books is tremendously excited to partner with On Demand Books to license our catalog to the Espresso Book Machine,” says Ibrahim Ahmad, Senior Editor. “Publishers have a responsibility to afford readers and booksellers with as many platforms as possible for consuming content, and EBM helps synthesize cutting-edge technology with a commitment to fostering literary culture in local communities, which dovetails nicely with our imperative as a company.”

“Akashic Books represents the type of quality genre fiction and non-fiction we want to keep in print and more widely available via our growing network of machines. We’re thrilled that they have signed with us and we look forward to helping stores have access to their entire list via the EBM,” says Dane Neller, CEO of On Demand Books.

The EBM is the only digital-to-print at-retail solution on the market today. With the push of a button, a title can be printed with a full-color cover, bound, and trimmed to any standard size. In a matter of minutes, it emerges from the EBM as a bookstore-quality paperback book, which the customer can pay for and walk out the store with right there and then.

Content from publishers is fed to the EBM via EspressNet, On Demand Books’ growing digital network of titles (currently numbering over seven million). Much like an iTunes for books, EspressNet retrieves, encrypts, transmits, and catalogues books from a multitude of English and foreign language content providers, including public domain, in-copyright, and self-published titles. Through the SelfServe software, writers can format, design, edit, and upload their books for printing through the EBM, and for inclusion in EspressNet. SelfServe will soon also be able to convert print files to the ePub format suitable for e-readers.

The EBM provides a new sales channel for publishers, and vastly increases the availability of titles for physical bookstores, significantly reducing loss of sales due to books being out-of-stock. In addition, the EBM technology offers libraries and bricks-and-mortar retailers the opportunity to become community self-publishing centers, providing a new distribution platform for self-published authors. And of course the EBM improves overall efficiency and environmental sustainability by eliminating shipping and the return and pulping of unwanted books.

About On Demand Books

On Demand Books was cofounded in 2003 by Jason Epstein, former Editorial Director of Random House; Dane Neller, former CEO of Dean & DeLuca; and Thor Sigvaldason, former technology consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Espresso Book Machines have been placed in bookstores, libraries, universities, and other locations in the USA, Canada, the UK, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, and the Caribbean. In September 2010, On Demand Books and Xerox announced a partnership whereby Xerox will market, sell or lease and service the Espresso Book Machine worldwide. Made in the USA, Espresso Book Machines are environmentally efficient, reducing production, shipping, and waste. For more information, go to www.ondemandbooks.com.

About Akashic Books

Akashic Books is an award-winning independent company dedicated to publishing urban literary fiction and political nonfiction by authors who are either ignored by the mainstream, or who have no interest in working within the ever-consolidating ranks of the major corporate publishers. Akashic Books hosts additional imprints, including the Akashic Noir Series, the Akashic Drug Chronicles Series, the Akashic Urban Surreal Series, Punk Planet Books, Dennis Cooper's Little House on the Bowery Series, Open Lens, Chris Abani's Black Goat Poetry Series, and Akashi Classics: Renegade Reprint Series.