On passings, Espresso Book Machines and a fantasy trilogy on sale
Jaxon Reed's Occasional Newsletter for Sept. 19, 2021
I attended the funeral of a family friend recently, leading me to reflect on the printing business since he had a small part in it locally.
This fellow and his wife opened up a successful office supply store downtown many decades back. When the chains came in and dominated the market segment with more convenient locations and lower prices, they pivoted. Among other things, they served as a retailer for high end digital printers such as those made by Ryobi that could be used by small presses and other places.
About the time he retired, print on demand (POD) started making waves in the business news. In particular, I recall when the Espresso Book Machine was introduced to great fanfare. This nifty device combined the power of digitization with printing and binding tech. Installed in a bookstore or library, a consumer could choose from 200,000 titles and minutes later walk out with a freshly printed paperback in hand.
Alas, the Espresso never really caught on in quite the way its developers hoped. One of the big reasons was the industrialization of POD on a massive scale combined with Internet marketing. IngramSpark opened up to anyone, offering to print small runs and send the titles directly to bookstores. Suddenly, independent authors could get their books in catalogs and not have to worry about stocking up copies in the basement.
Even better, Amazon got into the act. They bought out a major POD player, CreateSpace, and folded it into their Kindle Direct Publishing platform. Now consumers can order POD books online through Amazon. The book is printed by Amazon (Ingram titles are sold there too) and quickly shipped to the customer’s door.
One of the main differences between Ingram and Amazon from the author’s standpoint over the years has been in hardback offerings. IngramSpark offers hardcover printing as an option while Amazon traditionally dealt with paperback only. This has recently changed with Amazon now offering hardcover POD in beta.
We’ve come a long way from Ryobi printers, and the outsourcing of cutting and binding stacks of paper to make books locally. Now with just a few mouse clicks we sit back and wait for our books to show up in the mail. Were my old friend still with us and working, I’m sure he would be dreaming up a new way to pivot and find fresh income streams in this ever-changing business environment.
This week I have an older title on sale. The Forlorn Dagger Trilogy Box Set is a complete series featuring magic, pirates, floating castles and non-stop adventure. If you don’t have it yet, I hope you take a look. It’s under a buck for a limited time.
I’m also starting a new series in the Milky Way Universe. The first draft of Book 1 is here on Substack, for subscribers only.
JR