The Espresso Book Machine (EBM) is a
print on demand
Print on demand (POD) is a printing technology and business process in which book copies (or other documents, packaging or materials) are not printed until the company receives an order, allowing prints of single or small quantities. While oth ...
(POD) machine created by On Demand Books. It prints, collates, covers, and binds a single book in a few minutes.
Introduced in 2007, EBM is small enough to fit in a
retail
Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and t ...
bookstore
Bookselling is the commercial trading of books which is the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers, bookdealers, bookpeople, bookmen, or bookwomen. The founding of librari ...
or small
library
A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...
room, and as such it is targeted at retail and library markets. The EBM can potentially allow readers to obtain any book title, even books that are
out of print
__NOTOC__
An out-of-print (OOP) or out-of-commerce item or work is something that is no longer being published. The term applies to all types of printed matter, visual media, sound recordings, and video recordings. An out-of-print book is a book ...
. The machine takes a
PDF
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
file for input and prints, binds, and trims the reader’s selection as a
paperback book
A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with glue rather than stitches or staples. In contrast, hardcover (hardback) books are bound with cardboard covered with cloth, lea ...
.
[
]
History
Jason Epstein
Jason Wolkow Epstein (August 25, 1928 – February 4, 2022) was an American editor and publisher. He was the editorial director of Random House from 1976 to 1995. He also co-founded ''The New York Review of Books'' in 1963.
Early life
Epstein ...
gave a series of lectures in 1999 about his experiences in
publishing
Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
. Epstein mentioned in his speech that a future was possible in which customers would be able to print an out-of-stock title on the spot, if a book-printing machine could be made that would fit in a store. He founded 3BillionBooks with Michael Smolens, an
entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...
from
Long Island
Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...
living in
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
, and Thor Sigvaldason, a
consultant
A consultant (from la, consultare "to deliberate") is a professional (also known as ''expert'', ''specialist'', see variations of meaning below) who provides advice and other purposeful activities in an area of specialization.
Consulting servic ...
at
Price Waterhouse Coopers
PricewaterhouseCoopers is an international professional services brand of firms, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounting ...
. At the time,
Jeff Marsh, a
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...
and
inventor
An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...
, had already constructed a prototype book printer that could both photocopy and bind. Marsh was working on this project for Harvey Ross, who held
U.S. Patent
Under United States law, a patent is a right granted to the inventor of a (1) process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, (2) that is new, useful, and non-obvious. A patent is the right to exclude others, for a limited ...
5,465,213.
Peter Zelchenko
Peter may refer to:
People
* List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name
* Peter (given name)
** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church
* Peter (surname), a sur ...
, a
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
-based
technologist
Technologist may refer to:
* Applied Science Technologist, a Canadian professional title in engineering and applied science technology.
* Architectural technologist, a specialist in the technology fields of building, design and construction.
* C ...
and a partner of Ross in a related patent effort, worked with Marsh to prove the concept and also helped bring Marsh and other players together with several
venture
Venture may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Music
*The Ventures, an American instrumental rock band formed in 1958
*"A Venture", 1971 song by the band Yes
*''Venture'', a 2010 EP by AJR
Games
* ''Venture'' (video game), a 1981 arcade gam ...
interests.
Ultimately Epstein, together with
Dane Neller
Dane Joseph Neller (born April 30, 1956) is an American businessman and entrepreneur. He is best known for serving as chief executive of Dean & DeLuca, On Demand Books, and Shakespeare & Co.
Neller currently serves as CEO of New York-based book ...
, former President and CEO of
Dean and Deluca, licensed Marsh's
invention
An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an i ...
and founded On Demand Books.
About ODB: History
On Demand Books
The Espresso Book Machine (EBM) is a print on demand (POD) machine created by On Demand Books. It prints, collates, covers, and binds a single book in a few minutes.
Introduced in 2007, EBM is small enough to fit in a retail bookstore or small ...
. Retrieved on June 3, 2009.
The first Espresso Book Machine was installed and demonstrated June 21, 2007, at the New York Public Library
The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...
's Science, Industry and Business Library. For a month, the public was allowed to test the machine by printing free copies of public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work
A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...
titles provided by the Open Content Alliance
The Open Content Alliance (OCA) was a consortium of organizations contributing to a permanent, publicly accessible archive of digitized texts. Its creation was announced in October 2005 by Yahoo!, the Internet Archive, the University of California ...
(OCA), a non-profit organization with a database of over 200,000 titles.
Distribution
The direct-to-consumer model supported by Espresso Book Machine eliminates the need for shipping
Freight transport, also referred as ''Freight Forwarding'', is the physical process of transporting Commodity, commodities and merchandise goods and cargo. The term shipping originally referred to transport by sea but in American English, it h ...
, warehousing
A warehouse is a building for storing goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial parks on the outskirts of cities, tow ...
, returns
Return may refer to:
In business, economics, and finance
* Return on investment (ROI), the financial gain after an expense.
* Rate of return, the financial term for the profit or loss derived from an investment
* Tax return, a blank document or t ...
, and pulping
Pulp is a lignocellulosic fibrous material prepared by chemically or mechanically separating cellulose fibers from wood, fiber crops, waste paper, or rags. Mixed with water and other chemical or plant-based additives, pulp is the major raw mate ...
of unsold books; it allows simultaneous global availability of millions of new and backlist
A backlist is a list of older books available from a publisher. This is opposed to newly-published titles, which is sometimes known as the frontlist.
Business
Building a strong backlist has traditionally been considered the best method to produ ...
titles.
EBM books can also be made available for distribution through Lightning Source
Lightning Source is a printer and distributor of print-on-demand books. The company is a business unit of Ingram Content Group. Originally incorporated in 1996 as Lightning Print Inc., the company is headquartered in La Vergne, Tennessee. Its UK ...
, a subsidiary of Ingram Content Group
Ingram Content Group is an American service provider to the book publishing industry, based in La Vergne, Tennessee. It is a subsidiary of Ingram Industries.
Shawn Morin is CEO, and John R. Ingram is chairman of Ingram Industries.
History
The ...
.
References
External links
*
{{Books
Printing devices
Bookselling
Book publishing
2007 introductions