Blackwell Revolutionises Reading with Print-On-Demand Book Machine
Frustrating 'out-of-print' and 'out-of-stock' books will become a thing of the past with a new machine that prints books on demand. In the future, any novel, manual, journal or academic title, no matter how old or new can be printed in just under five minutes. Today, 24 April, Blackwell launches the Espresso Book Machine® (the "EBM") at its London flagship store in Charing Cross, which currently holds more than 400,000 publications. By summer there will be over a million titles available, the equivalent of 23.6 miles worth of shelving or over 50 bookshops rolled into one, in a machine the size of a photocopier.
The EBM is able to bring many rare texts back into production while providing access to a huge range of current titles from all the major publishers. At the press of a button, people can now access paperback copies of their favourite classics, psychological thrillers, contemporary 'whodunnits' or previously hard to find books, whenever they want. This can all be done by selecting titles in-store or with the online catalogue
Aspiring authors can also take advantage of the new EBM technology, uploading their work in person from a CD or flash drive, to see their written creations professionally printed, bound and trimmed into perfectly packaged library-quality paperback books indistinguishable from traditional published works. For information on how to correctly format documents for EBM printing, please click here.
Adding to an already impressive list of benefits, The EBM also boasts green credentials by removing the need to transport books great distances and saving on tons of CO2 emissions. It ensures that the number of books printed matches demand therefore eliminating the pulping of millions of unwanted books each year.
Phill Jamieson, Head of Marketing at Blackwell, comments:
"The Espresso Book Machine will offer more choice to consumers and ultimately change the publishing and book retailing industry. For book lovers it is able to bring rare works back into production and aspiring authors will be able to see their own work in print. By helping to eliminate unwanted returns, this will also help to reduce a book's carbon footprint. For Blackwell, the EBM is the perfect complementary service for its customers, offering instant, flexible and easy access to a far greater number of books."
The EBM makes a library-quality perfect-bound paperback book in a matter of minutes indistinguishable from a book on a bookstore shelf. The EBM is fully automated, and performs the following actions with minimal human intervention:
The user chooses a digital file from a web-based catalogue of books either at the physical EBM, or remotely via the internet (users can also bring their own files in person: on CDs and flash drives). The EBM uses PDF files for the book block and the cover.
A high-speed (110 ppm) black and white Xerox 4112 printer or a high-speed color printer prints the pages of the book – the book block. The printer uses standard lettersized (8.5" x 11") or A4 paper stock.
As pages are printed they are collected in the accumulator to ensure proper alignment.
Simultaneously, a color inkjet printer produces a full-color image on tabloid (11" x 17") or A3 cover stock that is used to form the book cover. The printed cover travels downward from the printer to the binding table where it waits for the book block.
Once the book block is complete, it is positioned vertically by the accumulator and transferred, in constant positive retention, to a clamp. The clamp enables the book block to travel vertically.
The clamp holds the book block while the bottom edge is milled to roughen the edges in preparation for glue application.
Immediately afterwards, a rotating wheel applies a thin layer of heat-activated glue over the milled edge.
The clamp then moves the book block down to the cover, which waits on the binding table. The EBM uses special pneumatics and clamps to press the cover against the spine and around the book block. This produces a traditional "perfect-bound" book.
The binding table opens and the clamp passes through and transfers the bound book to a robot at the shearing station. In the final steps of the process, the robot rotates the bound pages while a single carbide blade trims the edges into a book infinitely
variable between 4.5" x 4.5" and 8.5" x 11".
The completed library-quality paperback book is presented spine first by the EBM – still warm – ready to read. As we say, "Hot off the press!"
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