Northshire Bookstore in Vermont is the first indie bookshop in the US with an Espresso Book Machine. It’s brisk business is in self-publishing authors:
Northshire took delivery of its unit last year. Other first-generation machines went to college bookstores, like the one at the University of Alberta, and libraries, including the Library of Alexandria in Egypt and the University of Michigan Library in Ann Arbor, Mich. The newest version of the Espresso, about half the size of the one in Northshire, costs between $79,000 and $95,000 and is available for lease for between $1,250 and $1,650 a month…
Meanwhile, Northshire discovered that the machine’s ability to print original books in very small numbers was attracting a lively customer base of local authors. “Self-publishing was a plus we didn’t expect,’’ said Annette Rodefeld, Northshire’s print-on-demand coordinator.
In its first year, Northshire’s book machine printed dozens of original books by customers, including memoirs, autobiographies, poetry collections, and cookbooks, usually producing from 30 to 50 copies of each. The bookstore also published a young adult novel written by a local 12-year-old and a previously out-of-print guide to Manchester. [more...]
One Comment
I can believe how long it took for these machines to get deployed. I got all excited in 2001 when I read this: http://web.archive.org/web/20011201050556/www.business2.com/articles/mag/0,1640,14849,FF.html
8 years later I’m finally starting to hear about them “in the wild.”