There is an article in the September, 2017 issue of the IBPA Independent magazine, ‘Can the Espresso Book Machine Save the Indie Publisher?’  It is written by Peter Goodman, the publisher of Stone Bridge Press in Berkeley, California, and a member of the IBPA Independent Editorial Advisory Committee.

The article tells us that “the EBM is a self-contained, on-demand printing and binding machine that can produce a single perfect-bound book from a digital file in 5-8 minutes.  A product of On Demand Books in New York City, the EBM promises ‘Books Printed in Minutes at Point of Sale for immediate Pick-up and Delivery’.

“Currently there are about a hundred EBM’s installed in stores and libraries, mostly in the US and Canada, but in other countries, as well.  Through On Demand Books’ own servers and tie-ups with other publishers and with Google and Lightning Source, over 7 million titles are currently available in multiple languages for on-demand printing at these locations. ”

The article also mentions that the machine can be promoted to anyone who simply wants to get unpublished written material into a printed and bound format: family cookbooks, memoirs, school projects first novels, etc.

“An EBM prints books – perfectly bound only – one at a time on an integrated Xerox D95 toner-based printer.  Available formats range from 4.5″ x 5.0″ to 8.25″ x 10.75″ with page counts from 40 to 830 pages.   Covers are produced on heavier tabloid-size stock using four-colour digital printing.  As the book pages print, the cover is output and positioned below the book block.  The EBM then scrapes and applies glue to the spine of the block and presses the  block down onto the back surface of the cover.  The book is finished as soon as the block and its attached cover are turned and trimmed on the side and front edges.”

Espresso Book Machine

“Publishers contract with On Demand to make books available through the EBM network database.  The finances are straight forward: the EBM operator arranges with On Demand  for leasing and maintenance, and then pays a licensing fee for each book printed.  The publisher receives 25% of the price of the book to the customer; the publisher sets the price, as long as it exceeds a calculated amount to cover production costs, licensing and profit to the bookseller.”

Turning now to an article from Publishers Weekly, On Demand Books emphasize that the EBM is “not a POD ( print on demand) solution: it is a sales solution”

“Another reason that book machines have started to come into their own is that publishers are looking for ways to support bricks-and-mortar stores. Publishers cannot afford to lose retail distribution. So they also see this as a mechanism for the distribution model.  The desire to keep indies in business is translating to a new willingness to make content available. To date, most of the books that the machine can print have come from deep backlists.  Most frontlist titles are from smaller presses and open source publishers.

“A question put to attendees at Xerox’s first Thought Leadership Workshop about the EBM in Rochester, N.Y., last month indicates another possibility for the machine’s growing popularity: Amazon. “We need to compete with Amazon,” says Linda Gregory, who handles Web site and order fulfillment for Colgate Bookstore in Hamilton, N.Y.

“Statistics from On Demand are tantalizing: within the first three months of having a machine McNally Jackson Books in New York City has gone from zero to 1,000 books a month. At Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Mass., which added a machine in October 2009, owner Jeffrey Mayersohn expects to surpass 2,000 books a month this summer. “Digitalization is the salvation of the neighborhood bookstore,” he declares. He regards Amazon’s infrastructure as “20th-century” and believes that the key competitive issue is inventory, not price. With the EMB, Mayersohn says, “The store becomes a well-curated showroom with books published to specification—and a manufacturing operation in the backroom.”

In doing some research for this post, I found that the price of an EBM is $185,000, but I feel sure that On Demand’s preference is to enter into lease and maintenance agreements.