Schuler Books and Music became one of the nation's first retailers to jump into the emerging print-on-demand publishing industry when it installed a new Espresso Book Machine last week at one of its Grand Rapids stores.
While customers wait and watch, the $75,000 machine at the Schuler's 2660 28th St. SE store will download, print, bind and trim a paperback with a full-color cover in less than five minutes, according to Bill Fehsenfeld, who owns the area's five Schuler Book stores with his wife, Cecile.
Books eligible for printing are those authorized by the publisher and/or authors and those in the public domain --a status granted when the copyright expires, usually about 75 years after the first printing, he says. The store is only one of six retailers in the United States to own an Espresso Book Machine sold by On Demand Books, LLC in New York City, Fehsenfeld says. Research libraries and distributors have had the machine for several years but those machines have not been available to the public.
"We've had a lot of interest," Fehsenfeld says. "It's such a novel thing and nobody really knows where this will go. Our industry is undergoing a lot of change. But over time, more publishers will make copies of their books available on demand. It's so much more economical."
The cost to produce a print-on-demand paperback depends on the number and size of pages, he says. Publishers charge a nominal fee to access their databases. A writer can become a self-published author by paying a $75 set-up fee and the cost for each page (around 4 cents to 10 cents). It's the self-publishing market that Fehsenfeld expects to be his biggest market.
"From what we've heard from other people, it's going to be from individuals who want their books published, whether it's for family cookbooks, memoirs, novels, poetry or family history," he says. The store began taking orders this week.
Source: Bill Fehsenfeld, Schuler Books & Music
Sharon Hanks is the innovation and jobs news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected]
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