E-books, Espresso and Gutenberg

Following up on the topic of my last post, some news items (both from Publisher’s Weekly) caught my eye today, and I think they are worthy of discussion.

E-book Sales Explode in February as Other Segments Sink

“According to AAP’s monthly sales estimates, e-book sales jumped 202.3% [in February] at the 16 publishers that reported results…”

“For the first two months of 2011, e-book sales were up 169.4%, to $164.1 million, equalling the sales of trade paperbacks for the two-month period…”

The article goes on to say that the growth in the market is attributed to post-holiday purchases of e-books for new e-readers.

I got my first e-reader just about a year ago (I now have two – a Sony PRS and a Kindle). Within months I was a convert – I rarely buy printed books for myself any more. I love the e-reader for so many reasons, among them:

• Many books are a one-time read for me. I don’t feel a need to own a physical copy of these. [informational note: I don't have access to a wide variety of books in English through a library, so I buy everything I read].
• I honestly don’t have the space to own so many books. And I don’t have that many English-readers to pass my books on to when I’m having a clear-out.
• I love grabbing an e-reader, and knowing I’ve got multiple books with me. I don’t have to decide what I’m in the mood to bring. Just grab the reader and go, and figure out what I want to read once I’m on the train or at a café.

I think there are a lot of people like me who discover after getting an e-reader that, in most cases, they prefer an e-book to a physical book.

I have friends that say “Ah, but I need the book, the actual book, in my hand. The feel of the book, the act of turning the page – it’s all part of the reading experience.”

Honestly, I respect what they’re saying, but I don’t get what they’re saying. I get so lost in the reading experience with my e-readers that I have, more than once, reached up to physically turn the page. To me that is the ultimate proof that, as far as my reading experience goes, I can be every bit as engrossed in my e-books as I am in a printed book, as long as it’s a well-written book.

The other article that interested me was this one:

New York’s First Espresso Book Machine Debuts at McNally Jackson

“New York’s downtown indie bookseller McNally Jackson has had the city’s first Espresso Book Machine (which can print and bind books from, among other sources, Google Books, Lightning Source, or from files supplied by authors) for about a month…Surprisingly, Turner said that while he expected the machine to be used mostly for backlist and public domain books from Google, McNally’s machine has been used more frequently as a printing press for self-published authors, who have been using it to do small runs of their books, from 20 to 300 copies, for $6 plus $.02 per page. Self-published authors are also able to place their books in Espresso’s system at no extra charge, so that they are available for printing on other machines [sic]

Other surprising uses of the machine have included printing an emergency galley for W.W. Norton and printing up copies of an author’s books for an in-store event for which books didn’t arrive in time.”

If you want to see an Espresso Book Binding machine at work, check this out! It is amazing!

As the Husband said: “Gutenberg would [be amazed]!” (Well, he didn’t say exactly that, but in the interest of keeping the blog suitable for readers of all ages and sensibilities, I paraphrased a bit ). He went on to say that he thought Gutenberg would be pleased, and I have to agree. The invention of moveable type revolutionized publishing and democratized book ownership: faster production and lower costs meant more books were available, to a wider audience of readers.

E-books, e-readers, and Print On Demand services are the modern equivalent of the Gutenberg press: costs are lower, production and delivery are faster, and the end result is the same as it was in the 1400s: more books available, at a lower cost, to more readers.

At the moment, I see e-books and POD, together, as the future of publishing. For people like my friends, they can walk into the store, select the book they want from the menu, and five (!) minutes later, have a printed and bound paperback in their hands. For people like me, the e-books can be downloaded from the interwebs at our convenience. Either way, we can both be reading the same book, on our preferred medium, within minutes of our purchase. And as an author, what more could you ask for?

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