Order a latte at your favorite coffee house, it comes right up.
Try to order an out of print book at your local bookstore, it might be coming up faster than you think!
I live in Seattle. It is easily one of the largest reader cities in the world. The gloom and gray of our extended winters makes it so. We drink a lot of coffee. We buy a lot of books. We drink the coffee while reading a lot of books. We simply love everything that comes with sitting and reading. It’s in our genes.
Note: I’m more of a hot chocolate kind of guy once fall arrives, but don’t tell the rest of the coffee-saturated, caffeine hopped-up folks around me…
I had drinks last week with a publicist friend I’ve known for almost ten years. She was in town visiting her best friends and, having been in the industry for some time, has made a lot of friends who have relocated to Seattle. Those she invited out: a current editor at one of the local publishers, a former editor from Del Rey, two of her up-and-coming writer clients, a legalese production gamer, and a long-time sci-fi/fantasy expert from one of the local bookstores.
A fun group, all of whom work or have worked in the book industry.
The last one, the sci-fi/fantasy expert, divulged his bookstore will be getting a very cool contraption in November, one he hopes will create not only a new revenue stream for their bookstore but one that will help countless Seattle readers in their pursuit for knowledge, entertainment and publishing.
The bookstore in question is receiving an Espresso Book Machine!
Well, what is it?
As you can see from the video, the espresso book machine does exactly what you imagine it to. It is literally a printing press, small enough to fit in a bookstore, that allows the store to print and bind an out of print edition or print an on demand book within 10 minutes of taking an order. And on top of that it is affordable.
This is powerful technology.
And here’s why.
