First experience purchasing print-on-demand book

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by BillSmithBooks

The bookstore gets a sale with no shipping or shelving or return costs. Huge savings on rent because the stores are physically much smaller. Plus the bookstore can position itself as "We have every book in the world -- in stock, in your hands in minutes."

[...]

Not only that, this model would enable the "bookstore boutique" to survive in smaller communities where the major chain stores cannot survive. I can see these smaller stores becoming as commonplace as McDs...well not quite, but you get the idea. (Or maybe some brilliant exec at McDs, Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks or another large chain would add on the the "bookstore" model to an existing food/cafe chain).

This would be the death of bookstores. The point of a B&M store is that they have a large selection available. If a machine can print any book at all, why go to a bookstore to use it, you wouldn't see a Starbucks inside a bookstore, you'd see a print on demand machine in the corner of a Starbucks.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by BillSmithBooks

Steve:

I absolutely agree with you. The current paper book system simply cannot survive -- there is too much cost and waste in the system with larger than needed print runs, returns, shipping, etc.

I know it sounds counterintuitive, but the current system actually costs less overall than any of the available alternatives. It's not so much that it's a good system - but it's the least bad system out there.

Originally Posted by BillSmithBooks

B&N and Borders are in serious financial trouble and don't seem to be making any headway with their brick and mortar stores.

Plus the current system of "big chain orders 5,000 books...and then returns 4,999 for credit three months later" is just certain death for smaller presses.

I agree with you here, especially on the effect it can have on smaller presses - but the returns system does allow bookstores to take more chances on niche books than they might otherwise be able to.

Originally Posted by BillSmithBooks

I love physical bookstores and I love having printed books...I think the only way the industry can survive is to go to the "boutique store" method above -- sure, there will always be a handful of "big box stores" I suppose, but I think the smaller stores will become the norm (again):

In many markets, smaller stores, comparable in size to the old Waldenbooks/B Daltons or typical Indie book store. The store probably only carries a couple of thousand titles, the titles that are guaranteed to sell.

A good chunk of the store is the cafe/lounge -- the idea is, "come in, get your drink and snack and browse for what you want." (Many people will use their existing ebook reader, laptop, smartphone, tablet if they have it with them, but there will be plenty of "loaner" browsing devices to go around.)

When you find something you want, you can buy and have it directly downloaded to your ebook device of choice but the really interesting option is you can buy a printed version -- then the dedicated ebook printers in the back go to work, printing out an "on demand" copy in a few minutes.

I think this is a great idea, though I think it would be better as an add-in to a conventional bookstore. Keep more common books in stock, and have the on-site printing capacity replace special orders.

Originally Posted by BillSmithBooks

(I know most people are thinking of the Espresso Book Machine but the technology is still pretty finicky -- I don't see any reason you couldn't just use a business-quality high-volume laser printer and have the clerks in the back handbind the books with Gorilla Glue).

It's a great deal for everyone:

The publisher gets a sale with no printing, warehousing, shipping or return costs.

The bookstore gets a sale with no shipping or shelving or return costs. Huge savings on rent because the stores are physically much smaller. Plus the bookstore can position itself as "We have every book in the world -- in stock, in your hands in minutes."

And the reader gets presumably decent pricing and instant delivery of books instead of waiting a couple of days for a book to be mailed to them.

I don't think this would be a successful business model. First, the process you describe would produce a really sub-standard quality product; and returns or no, substandard product hurt sales in the long run.

With regard to printing costs, they're not eliminated; they're simply moved. The publisher's no longer paying them, now it's the retailer. There's no cost savings here, if anything it's an increase because any POD system has a much higher cost per copy than offset printing.

Meanwhile, the reader is either paying more or somebody else is getting paid less - either the bookstore, publisher, or author. Remember, costs are higher in this model, and if the line's held on price, the person most likely to eat those increased costs is the author.

Originally Posted by BillSmithBooks

Naturally, the publishing industry would fight this business model tooth and nail because they'd have to come up with a secure means of protecting their content and monitoring printed copies...and well, it makes sense.

But it would be a great way for publishers and brick and mortar book stores to compete with ebooks.

Not only that, this model would enable the "bookstore boutique" to survive in smaller communities where the major chain stores cannot survive. I can see these smaller stores becoming as commonplace as McDs...well not quite, but you get the idea. (Or maybe some brilliant exec at McDs, Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks or another large chain would add on the the "bookstore" model to an existing food/cafe chain).

This kind of system can't and won't replace the current one until POD books become at least an order of magnitude cheaper to produce.

If you go by Lulu and their cost calculator a 250 page standard size paperback (and that's 250 sheets so 500 pages for the reader) costs $8.00 to manufacture. They're probably the biggest POD house out there at the moment, so any other POD system's going to have comparable costs - if not higher.

That's $0.01 per copy more to manufacture a book by POD than the cover price of most of the mass market paperbacks I've bought recently; and most of the paperbacks I've bought lately have been longer, some of them much longer, so they would have cost even more to produce by POD.

Right now a mass-market paperback costs about $0.80 to print - and with an industry average sell-through of about 65% that works out to an effective manufacturing cost of about $1.25 for every copy sold - which is still less than a fifth of the manufacturing cost of POD.

That's the killer - yes the system is wasteful - but it's still cheaper than POD.

Publishers aren't fighting this idea because it makes sense, or because it would break their monopoly or anything like that. They're against moving to this model because it would cost too much.

POD is brilliant for small print runs and specialized books. It's not a replacement for offset printing and the current returns system and won't be until it becomes much cheaper.

[khalleron]

Actually, 250 pages on Lulu is 125 sheets. The printing cost is per page, not per sheet.

The primary reason I went with Createspace instead of Lulu was that Createspace's cost was lower for the same quality.

Lulu offers hardcover and Createspace doesn't, though.

[Latinandgreek]

I'm very sorry to hear about the loss of your friend.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by khalleron

Actually, 250 pages on Lulu is 125 sheets. The printing cost is per page, not per sheet.

The primary reason I went with Createspace instead of Lulu was that Createspace's cost was lower for the same quality.

Lulu offers hardcover and Createspace doesn't, though.

Interesting, though it just reinforces my point as it makes POD books even more expensive in comparison.

[Steven Lake]

Originally Posted by BillSmithBooks

A good chunk of the store is the cafe/lounge -- the idea is, "come in, get your drink and snack and browse for what you want." (Many people will use their existing ebook reader, laptop, smartphone, tablet if they have it with them, but there will be plenty of "loaner" browsing devices to go around.)

Well, sadly, the cafe/lounge idea is what's hurting the big bookstores the most. You wouldn't believe the number of people I've talked to who stopped buying books when they realized that they could just come in, grab a cup of coffee, a book off the shelf, and then read it front to back for free! And I believe them. I go into B&N bookstores periodically and study people as I'm walking around, trying to get an idea of what they're doing/thinking/looking for. It's more to satisfy my own morbid curiosity. The one biggest thing I see is dozens and dozens of people who at most have bought a cup of coffee and are sitting down reading their favorite novel with absolutely no intention of buying it. Back when you couldn't just sit around and read books for free (essentially stealing them in a sense of the word) at the big chain stores, people actually bought books, and they bought a lot of them. But with no incentive to do so now, they're not. So why do they go to B&N and do this instead of the library? The library doesn't permit coffee, and it's less "classy".

[Latinandgreek]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

Well, sadly, the cafe/lounge idea is what's hurting the big bookstores the most. You wouldn't believe the number of people I've talked to who stopped buying books when they realized that they could just come in, grab a cup of coffee, a book off the shelf, and then read it front to back for free! And I believe them. I go into B&N bookstores periodically and study people as I'm walking around, trying to get an idea of what they're doing/thinking/looking for. It's more to satisfy my own morbid curiosity. The one biggest thing I see is dozens and dozens of people who at most have bought a cup of coffee and are sitting down reading their favorite novel with absolutely no intention of buying it. Back when you couldn't just sit around and read books for free (essentially stealing them in a sense of the word) at the big chain stores, people actually bought books, and they bought a lot of them. But with no incentive to do so now, they're not. So why do they go to B&N and do this instead of the library? The library doesn't permit coffee, and it's less "classy".

Really? Wow, I wasn't aware of this. The Chapters bookstores in Canada have don't let you bring unpaid books into the coffee shop. At least the Chapters that I've been to. I'm trying to remember if the big Indigo on Bay and Bloor lets you bring books into the cafe area, but I don't think it does.

[TallMomof2]

At my local Borders, the coffee shop area is right beside the magazine aisles and there are plenty of overstuffed chairs so that you can easily sit down with your coffee and read magazines or even books which are next to the magazines. Even the children's reading area is full of seating areas. When my kids were young I'd take them there and we could read for quite a while *but* I always purchased some books to take home. The biggest issue was finding books that weren't shopworn.

[SlowRain]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

Ten thousand POD books cost ten thousand times as much to run off as one POD book. The printer may charge you less per, but it's cutting into their profit margin to do it.

Traditional offset printing has massive economies of scale - and that makes a huge difference.

I imagine bestselling authors will have a traditional print run for their new releases and will be sold through retail outlets (online and off), but their back catalogs along with authors with lower sales will be just fine on POD.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by SlowRain

I imagine bestselling authors will have a traditional print run for their new releases and will be sold through retail outlets (online and off), but their back catalogs along with authors with lower sales will be just fine on POD.

I don't think you realize just how much more expensive POD is to produce at the moment. It's not going to be a viable alternative to offset for anything over very small runs (we're talking well under a thousand total copies) until the cost to manufacture drops by at least a factor of five.

Right now, the price to manufacture a POD book is often equal to or greater than the cover price of a comparable book printed on an offset press. This requires higher prices, and traps authors in a self-fulfilling prophecy of lower sales.

Once the cost comes down drastically, it will be a viable option - but until then it's not going to be practical except for very niche books.

The economics are murder.

[SlowRain]

Don't get me wrong. I agree with what you're saying. In fact, I think we both agree it'll be the way the trend will go.

It'll first start up in places where it's just hard or impractical to have a large selection of books available. People in those situations will be willing to pay more. I imagine in Asia (but not North America), 7-11 will have these machines. I also think there will be an environmental incentive as well seeing as all those packages from Amazon criss-crossing the country and world can't be good. If the computer industry is anything to go by, it'll take a few years, but it'll get there. E-books were booed by pundits all along, yet a few enterprising individuals saw the opportunity. Now it's all anyone can talk about.

Like e-books, POD has the potential to take power away from the current publishing conglomerates.

[Steven Lake]

Lemurion: Believe it or not, there are a bunch of people out there who are figuring out how to do POD runs at half the cost of traditional printing by using some of the same tricks that the big printers use, only amped up in certain areas. I think one of them is looking at getting the "per book" cost of POD down to like $2.50 a copy for a standard 250 page 6x9 novel. My best price for full print runs of no less than 5000 at that size is about $3.