From Goodreader:
In the on-going debate over print versus digital, Ingram Content Group has found a way to give a leg-up to print books through its print-on-demand model. Like many other models of kiosk-based in store selection, printing, and binding, Ingram allows users to only print those titles that are necessary at the point of purchase. Stores do not need to maintain a costly stock of inventory and the costs of shipping are alleviated for the publisher and the consumer.
Now, Ingram has developed its Global Connect program to bring the same ease of purchase to books on an international level. Publishers can now maintain a catalog of titles that can be purchased globally, removing the effort and expense of international shipping. A partnership has already been forged with Singular Digital in Brazil, and negotiations are in the works with book distributors in Japan and Germany.
Ingram impresses me more each year I do business with them. Global printing is wonderful, but they need to following that up with smart and adaptive pricing. The world economy is so unstable, setting and maintaining the proper pricing in dozens of different currencies is too much for all but the largest publishers. Ingram needs some way authors and publishers can set cost plus X % pricing, with enough inertia in the system to prevent sudden jumps or falls in prices. And as a Seattle publisher, I’d add that printing in Timbuktu is all well and good, but it’d be nice to have the printing plant on the west coast that was being discussed when I signed up with Lightning Source over a decade ago. The savings in shipping costs and time would be substantial. Besides, there a trees in Oregon who long to become a well-read and much-loved book rather than mere toilet paper, here today and gone tomorrow.