Electronic Books vs Instant On-Demand Printing

Some web surfing today made me decide to compare two ideas that may change the way we read (as if the Internet hasn't already done that). Both have been around a while but advances in technology may help revive a challenged publishing industry. Either technology could change what we read and how we get it.

Electronic Books

Also called e-readers or e-books, these devices have cropped up here and there over the past few years, though none has ever had any significant success. They essentially consist of some type of display approximating the size of a page from a paperback and the electronics to download, store and display the electronic book content. I think one of the reasons these have never caught on is that it is usually difficult to get books downloaded into your e-book. Each new e-book product, and there have been more than a few, have required some custom data format to manage digital rights, though they would often times also support more popular or open formats like PDF or HTML. The problem is that to get the latest published book, one had to find it in the format suitable for the device, as no publisher has produced recent works in easily copyable formats like HTML or PDF, nor would they even entertain that notion. The usually only public domain or works with expired copyright are available in the open formats. Another problem is the cost of the device. The least expensive reader I’ve yet uncovered is $299. That amount of money goes a very long way on Amazon. Though e-books may be able to do a lot more, like play MP3 files, those extras seem like afterthoughts and don’t really add much value.

• Jinke eReader $299US
• iRex eReader €649
• Sony Reader $349US

Instant On-Demand Printing

On-demand printing has been around for a while - think of Lulu self publishing. A writer can send a properly formatted manuscript to the on-demand service, who then can print your book whenever someone orders it. You can even set the price of the book above a fixed price that covers the printer’s costs and margin. What’s relatively new is the “instant” idea. Instead of the printing and binding being handled by a book manufacturer, a machine in a small bookstore (or even something like one of those little airport shops) prints, binds, and even puts a full-color cover on your chosen book in just a few minutes. Of course, the equipment is expensive, but it’s not for the individual. The World Bank has one under test in their New York office. Officials with the Bank have envisioned machines being placed in community centers in rural areas of Africa (and elsewhere), to provide access to books for people who would otherwise have no access to the printed word, let alone internet access.

• Espresso Book Machine
• BookMachine

In learning about the two machines in the list above, I noticed that the names of the companies are very similar, the products almost identical. The companies, however are in different places: one in St. Louis, the other New York City. If they are different companies, I see a law suit on the horizon, as the maker of the BookMachine has already won significant suits against Ingram Industries, Lightning Source, and Amazon.com. Given that the last news update from that company is that lawsuit and it is dated to 2004, I tend to believe that that company has morphed into the company making the Espresso machine.

Which Product Wins?

I’ll admit I love books. I love the way they smell, the way they feel. I get a thrill when I buy a new one. I have even taught myself the rudiments of hard-cover binding by hand and made a few tiny diary books. Keep that in mind as a very strong potential bias when I say that I think instant on-demand printing is the winner. Instant on demand printing wins in the end because of the ultimate portability of a physical, printed book. You don’t need batteries to read it. You take it out where ever you are and just start reading, whether on an airplane, in your bedroom, or in a monk’s cave in the Himalayas. Given that buying an electronic file can be almost as expensive as a physical book, and the price of the electronic solution becomes even more burdensome. I think one day electronic books may indeed displace printed books. That will, however, depend upon fair digital rights management, access to the internet and other technology for even the most remote villages, and industry standardization of file formats so that any content can be read on any reader device. If you watch the videos on the Espresso machine’s site, you’ll see some other problems that machine solves, like book inventory warehousing and making available books that would otherwise become out of print. Electronic books solve those problems as well, because both technologies ultimately depend on the books being stored digitally somewhere before either being downloaded to a reader device or sent to a book machine. I hope that the organizations that use these book machines will cooperate with groups like the Open Content Alliance to help restore awareness of wonderful out of print books and important books that are no longer under copyright.

On-Demand Pali Canon?

What excites me about all this is the idea of having the complete Buddhist canon at my fingertips, along with other important texts and commentaries. I’ve noticed as I’ve learned more about Buddhism that there are many wonderful free resources on the internet: free texts written by teachers, out-of-copyright works, even audio and video. Given the community’s penchant for sharing, I think we already have a wealth of material that could be put in or returned to print in a form much more convenient that a web page, or a binder of printed web pages. It’s my hope that technologies like these can help spread the dharma to all those who wish to hear it, for the benefit of all.