Espresso at University of Waterloo Since first it was launched in 2007, I’ve been a staunch supporter of the vision of the Espresso Book Machine. That belief, however, begins to wane of late. Why? Well, there are a series of problems, most of them human, which seem to plague this remarkable technology. I will address those problems, both human and technical. Initial cost investment. Cost would appear to be the major hurdle for…
If you follow publishing news, you will have read about Indigo expanding into photography. According to Indigo head, Heather Reisman, there is an opportunity here. Sitting here in the backwater of Neustadt, peering out into the world, I cannot help but wonder if, in fact, Heather Reisman isn’t missing an opportunity rather than finding one? Agreed booksales at Indigo have been sliding. But, then again, Indigo have done two things to assist in that sales…
Well, I got excited there for a minute. The day following my Keynote address at the conference in Beverly Hills, my wife took the kids to Disneyland while I worked on some writing. I took a long lunch break, however, to walk around Downtown Disney, the shopping and restaurant district which doesn’t require any admission fee, though you do have to clear security. So walking down the street I spied this sign and thought, “Wowhoo!…
Reading Lorina’s rankings of Independent bookstores in previous post, I tried to imagine the sort of store I (Robert) would like to see. My vision of the independent bookstore of the future is one with an Espresso Machine, a coffee bar, a flat screen monitor flashing random 30 second shots of coverart/coverblurbs from the available Espresso catalog, and a set of bookshelves filled with ‘staff picks’ off the Espresso machine. Maybe a couple of computer…
Over Two Million Public Domain Titles Now Available Directly to ConsumersGoogle has agreed to provide On Demand Books, LLC (ODB), the maker of the Espresso Book Machine® (EBM), with immediate access to over two million public-domain titles in the Google digital files. This unprecedented number of reading options is in addition to the current 1.6 million titles already available directly to consumers via the Espresso Book Machine®. The Espresso Book Machine® is a small, patented…