“The Great Gatsby was last updated in 1924. You don’t need it to be refreshed, do you?

“Maybe nobody will care about printed books 50 years from now, but I do. When I read a book, I’m handling a specific object in a specific time and place. The fact that when I take the book off the shelf it still says the same thing – that’s reassuring.

“Someone worked really hard to make the language just right, just the way they wanted it. They were so sure of it that they printed it in ink, on paper. A screen always feels like we could delete that, change that, move it around. So for a literature-crazed person like me, it’s just not permanent enough.”

Here at Bello, we agree with the sentiment that authors ‘worked really hard to make the language just right,’ and the ability to publish in ebook format is ironically enabling us to bring some fantastic books back into print.  Without the rise of ebooks in the last few years, it would be much more difficult for authors like Pamela Hansford Johnson, Vita Sackville-West and Andrew Garve – to name just three – to be rediscovered and enjoyed.  The same hard work went into publishing these books as did The Great Gatsby, and we’re committed to preserving that legacy for the future – retaining the text as published originally, just changing the format a little to suit the digital age.

Other Bello authors include Gerald Durrell, Francis Durbridge, Josephine Bell, R. C. Sherriff, Gillian Tindall and David Williams, with many more lost classics to follow throughout 2012.

If the EBM follows Moore’s law, you’ll be able to buy one for your home in a short while!

Eoin Purcell remarks, in his blog post on this subject, that “When you consider the customer breakdown and the likely purchases that Blackwell encompasses, you see that they are almost ideally suited as a launch customer for the Espresso in the UK!” I generally agree with this assessment, although I think the list of titles available through the machine (1MM apparently) could be more or less skewed to the Blackwells market segment, depending on their strategy. Or in other words, could Blackwells use the EBM to leapfrog Borders or Waterstones in the UK by selling the long tail titles across all segments, categories and genres? Unlikely, I suppose, with just 60 stores, and that idea relies on readers/bookbuyers everywhere being very determined about what they want to buy next, and being constantly on the hunt for relatively obscure titles. Hmm, maybe not.

Oh, and… erm, 1 million titles! Where are they all coming from? Whose titles are they? Do you need a licence to POD? There must be solid answers to these questions out there… bit more googling ahead for me, I reckon…

By the magic of the intergnat, you can watch a POD book machine in action on YouTube (the video title says this is an EBM, but it’s not… unless Perfect Book somehow means EBM):

The comments from YouTube users immediately highlight two concerns – how much will a book cost? and how long will the wait be?

These, apart from the logistics of running the machine, are the main challenges ahead of Blackwells: making it cheap, and keeping the customers entertained while they wait, either for the book they’re buying, or for a chance to use the machine.

The EBM suppliers, On Demand, seem to be fully aware of this challenge, and are taking the line that getting the machines into stores and being used is the first step, and accommodating that process is important.

The logistics are not to be so lightly dismissed though: ink, paper, power, maintenance, staff on hand to help etc. Anyone who’s seen the gradual rape and destruction of the office photocopier will know that complex machines don’t last long in the hands of the many.

The immediate benefit of installing POD machines is the ability to sell long tail titles, right? Right. Faber is trying it over the web, with Faber Finds: putting a hook or two into the long tail waters, but only pulling out the fish that they like the look of. Blackwells is offering indiscriminate (within the 1MM title universe) fishing in the long tail sea.

Some people will see this as adding new strength to the self-publishing toolset that web 2.0 has put in the hands of potential authors everywhere (where there’s broadband), giving Author X a cost-free route to market. But how will those titles be found? Just being inside the EBM gets you almost nowhere – getting the person in front of it to choose your book is what counts. Still, no small deal.

And that brings me to the point of selection – if I was standing in front of an EBM (which I have not done, and would like to do), what would I choose to print? How simple and usable is the user interface to select the book? What are my options for format etc., if any? Will the ATM of books be the headache of bookshopping, or the gateway to the modern day library of Alexandria?

Photo: Espresso Ahead by Laughing Squid / Scott Beale

Tor UK author Charlie Stross was also in town.  As well as being one of the world’s pre-eminent SFF authors Stross is a renowned expert on digital issues and has been eloquent and influential in his denunciation of eBook DRM, going so far as to offer his novel Accelerando for free online under a Creative Commons licence, where it was downloaded over 20k times in the first weekend of being posted, followed by some big sales figures for the book itself.  Stross argues against DRM from a user perspective: DRM makes it hard, very hard, to read the stuff that you have paid for.  Stross is also an advocate Baen.com. Baen Books, a SFF specialist publisher in the US, is probably one of the only trade publishers in the world to make serious money from its digital products.  Baen dispenses with some of the standard models of trade publishing, for example selling monthly bundles of four new novels for $15. This “webscription” system, pioneered by Baen,  seems to be a sucess.  They will happily give books away if they believe that is the right thing- say a series is well advanced Baen might give away the first novel as a way of bringing in new readers.  Another Baen idea is selling original, unedited manuscripts for download at a very decent price indeed- it indulges fans keen to get under the skin of a book or writer and simultaneously opens up a new revenue stream.  In short Baen are doing everything other publishers are talking about but holding back from- slicing and dicing content, bundling content, not bothering with prohibitive DRM, giving things away for free or pricing their digital products in a range people seem to find acceptable, opening spaces for their customers to say what they want and keeping an open, electronic channel for new authors. There is a lot to be learnt.