Print on Demand has arrived on main street. There has been a tremendous amount of publicity surrounding the recent installation of the Espresso Machine at the NYPL.For a nice primer on the print on demand issue check out Peter Brantley's post "Where lies the Print on Demand" over at O'Reilly Radar.He reproduces a highly informative thread of "a debate on POD business models."All you booksellers out there need to keep your seat belt on for this is going to shake the book tree as hard as the advent of online bookselling did.Book Patrol post from December 06 - Books: Espresso...
The Hunt Is On In the U.K.
The public libraries of the United Kingdom are on a treasure hunt.The goal:To find the coolest item in their collection that has yet to be digitized and enter it into a contest being run by the British Library.The contest is sponsored by the British Library with financial support coming from Microsoft.If a particular library doesn't feel they have anything worthy they can they include "local partners such as museums, archives, churches or stately homes" to come up with their submission.Finalists will be "invited to a high-profile awards ceremony at the British Library."There will be one winner for each part of...
Books: The Last Physical Media Product That Makes Sense
That's how Chris Anderson, Editor of Wired Magazine and creator of The Long Tail concept, put it during his keynote at the inaugural O'Reilly Media Tools of Change for Publishing Conference taking place this week in San Jose.The goals of the conference are:-To raise "the level of technology knowledge and discourse in the publishing industry"-To provide "a meeting ground for everyone involved in the future of publishing"It's a big week and I suspect a much more relevant one these days than the recently held BookExpo.As comforted as I was by Anderson's acknowledgment of the staying power of the book I...
Mailer Goes LongPen
The Guardian is reporting that Norman Mailer will be appearing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival via the LongPen.Mailer, who is 84, says the "Triple As', age, asthma and arthritis" make traveling very difficult, forcing him to "cancel his trip to the "great luminous grey city" Edinburgh."Catherine Lockerbie, a spokeswoman for the festival, says Mailer's canceled visit has become "an opportunity to showcase the LongPen system."Queen LongPen Margret Atwood will be in attendance. She is scheduled to interview fellow Canadian Alice Munro and then "coordinate a trans-oceanic book signing."George over at Bookninja has his take on the story complete with...
Changing Reading Habits
"Insomniacs used to read, but now they turn on TV and there's 200 channels, with everything from the pope saying mass in Brazil to Girls Gone Wild to QVC selling cheap diamonds" - John Shaver talking about the closing of his shop, Shaver's Books in Huntsville, Alabama, after almost 20 years in business."Your heart can lie to you, but your balance sheet won't...The numbers reached out to me and said, 'John, it's time.'" says Shaver.Shaver also points out that the old mantra for retail success - location, location, location has now evolved to price, price, price and there is no...