It’s a cliché that the elderly are out of touch with the future, and prefer to cling to the way things were in the past rather than moving forward into the future. But there are plenty of exceptions to every rule, and 83-year-old Jason Epstein, the man behind the Espresso “ATM for books” is one of them. The Frankfurt Book Fair blog is carrying an article based on an interview with him about what he sees as the future of the publishing industry.

Epstein first learned about “disintermediation”—the practice of removing middle-men from transactions—back in the 1980s, but it’s become a big problem for the publishing industry today as firms like Amazon allow authors to sell their own books and e-books directly to readers.

Epstein’s solution was the idea of an “ATM for books”—a miniature one-off print-on-demand printing press that could produce a book to order in just a few minutes. When he heard such a device—the Espresso—was being developed, he decided to buy it. A few years later, the Espresso is finally starting to take off, and Epstein sees it as an important part of the future.

So how does Epstein see the future of the publishing industry? “Few activities are more important than managing the content of books. The digital future is going to be a huge opportunity,” says Epstein excitedly,  muttering under his breath that he wishes he were young again. “The only filter left is human nature.”

Epstein believes the successful future publishing company will be like the Random House of the 1950s – just “a small group of likeminded managers” – about 8 editors, no meetings and those editors could be living in different countries.

It seems clear that if the Espresso becomes a commonplace item, publishers could find they no longer need to bother with the expense and complication of doing print runs themselves. So the publishers would end up being the company that prepares the digital version of the book and makes it available, and the Espresso prints it on demand.

Whether we actually get there, and how long it will take, is the question, however.

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6 COMMENTS

  1. No doubt this will be a last gasp attempt to keep some kind of brick and mortar bookstore business alive. The economics always appeared dubious and none of the strenghts of physical retail is kept.

    Add this idea to those past futures that included flying cars and domed cities.

  2. I don’t think that the Espresso itself is the start of an inventory-less future. Two of your related posts link to announcements by Ingram and HP, providers of POD services that any publisher can use today to fulfill demand. What’s needed is a change in mindset among publishers that, for lower-demand titles, the cumulative expense of inventory (storage, waste, capital) can outweigh the higher unit cost associated with on-demand printing.

    This isn’t a criticism of the Espresso. I was in the audience when Sophie Rochester interviewed Epstein at O’Reilly Media’s Tools of Change conference in Frankfurt, and he outlined a compelling case for content customization via these localized machines. But if you’re looking for a reason to pursue a “distribute, then print” strategy, the tools are already in place to do that with a variety of on-demand vendors.

  5. I do think that at some time in the near future will have value added features that print books will never have. That includes audio and video. Also, because it can be done at almost no cost except for added mega-bytes, novels will have illustrations like they did back in the 19th Century.

    Thanks,
    JP

  6. This isn’t just the future of publishing- it’s the future of everything.

    From sodastream for beverages to 3D printing for plastic items and components piece- many, if not most things can be custom prepared for the consumer at a retail location in just a couple of minutes. There’s a pizza place by me that never takes more than 30 seconds to get you a fulll hot pie.

    Combined with local delivery services like mygofer, click-and-wait business models like Amazon.com and Overstock will be absolutely archaic soon, IMHO. It made sense when I was a kid, but come on, it’s the 21st century! Why on earth would anyone want to wait two whole days for merchandise when you can get it delivered in under an hour?

    Plus, you shouldn’t need to pay all the overhead for a factory and a warehouse when all you need is a store and production device.

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