Print On Demand

Go Read This | Independent bookstores embrace digital publishing with ‘espresso’ book machine – The Washington Post

~ Eoin Purcell ~ 4 Comments

I’m intrigued by this. Not least because 5,000 paperbacks in 7 months is 23 books a day. Impressive stuff, though I wonder if ut makes any money:

Politics and Prose has produced almost 5,000 paperback books — some in as little as five minutes — since receiving the book machine nicknamed “Opus” last November. Leggett said about 90 percent of the books printed on the machine are self-published works by local authors.

The others are out-of-print editions, millions of titles available in the public domain like Google Books, and digital formats licensed out through major publishers including Harper Collins.

Alfred Morgan Jr. was able to get a copy of his father’s out-of-print 1923 aviation guide, “How to Build a 20-foot Bi-Plane Glider,” printed on the machine for $8. The volume was on Google Books.

via Independent bookstores embrace digital publishing with ‘espresso’ book machine – The Washington Post.

Go Read This | B.O.B., University of Texas’ $150,000 Book Machine, Readies for Freshman Year

~ Eoin Purcell ~ Leave a comment

I just liked this paragraph but the whole piece is interesting and well worth reading!

Case in point: The University of Texas Co-Op — who is the largest seller of used textbooks in the country and the most profitable independent college bookstore in the United States — recently purchased an EBM for $150,000. It has created publishing company Forty Acres Press to manage the machine, which has been affectionately named B.O.B: The Burnt Orange Book machine, in honor of the university’s signature color.

via B.O.B., University of Texas’ $150,000 Book Machine, Readies for Freshman Year.

Amazon Encore Signs JA Konrath

~ Eoin Purcell ~ 3 Comments

Shaen By J. A. KonrathAmazon Encore the publishing imprint of the internet retailer has signed a deal with JA Konrath to publish his next ‘Jack’ Daniel title, Shaken.

This is pretty big news, as Mike Shatzkin points out:

this is a significant jolt to conventional publishing economics. Sales of Konrath’s $2.99 ebook will deliver him about $2.10 a copy (Konrath says $2.04; not sure where the other six cents is going…), as much or more as he would make on a $14.95 paperback from a trade publisher, and significantly more than he’d make on a $9.99 ebook distributed under “Agency” terms and current major publisher royalty conventions.

I noted here and elsewhere how Authors will drive change and pointed specifically to Konrath. It is very interesting that this deal is with Encore whose efforts I have also been watching warily for some time.

Publishers who didn’t see this coming, having been warned that such moves were on the horizon and in the aftermath of a series of similar deals really only have themselves to blame. I wonder what the reaction will be.

Print may wither much sooner than we expect!
Eoin

Go Tell Declan To SELF-PUB His Book

~ Eoin Purcell ~ 2 Comments

Declan Burke has asked for reader feedback on whether he should self-publish his book:

The basic idea is that I set up a project with a total amount that needs to be raised (€2,570). I let people know where and how they can pledge their €7, and hopefully 367 people buy into the idea. If the amount is raised within a specific time period (three months, say), then your pledge is accepted and transferred to my bank account, and shortly afterwards you receive your copy of A GONZO NOIR; if the total amount isn’t reached in a specified period, all pledges are cancelled and it costs nobody anything, except possibly yours truly’s pride. For more information on the Kickstarter project, clickety-click here.
So there you have it. Any takers?

I’ve read Declan for some time now and love his style and think he has been unfortunate not to a much bigger star. Please go tell him to try this out and when he does, please pledge him some cash!

Eoin