By Linda Arntzenius

How often have you heard that the printed book is an outdated medium destined to go the way of the dinosaur? Over. Passé. Being usurped by digital media. Well, not exactly.

According to a recent Bowker report, the number of books being published has exploded in recent years. The reason? Self-publishing. And the new Espresso Book Machine is the latest technology to hit the book world.

Although bookstores have been feeling the pinch—with Publishers Weekly monitoring a decline that hit major chains with a 12 percent drop in sales between 2007 and 2009—over a million titles are published each year in the United States alone. More than two-thirds are self-published or are reprints of public domain works or other print-on-demand titles.

Bowker, the leading provider of information about books and publishing trends, reports that in 2009 three times the number of books was published as compared to four years earlier. The upshot is more books vying for shelf space. Accordingly its getting harder and harder each year for booksellers to make sales and for authors to make their works stand out from the crowd. In recent years, the biggest growth is in niche marketing and selling only to the authors’ and publishers’ communities. Authors are not only self-publishing they are self-marketing too.

Tough news for authors, but the good news is that there’s never been such easy access to the world of print since the first printing press. A new machine now makes it possible to create your own magnum opus—family history, travelogue, memoir, recipe, short story or poetry collection, novel, or dissertation, you name it.

Just pop your Portable Document Format (pdf) file into one end of this machine and out comes your finished book at the other, a “perfect bound” paperback with a glued spine like most of the paperbacks sold today and ready to send out into the world. What is this wonder called? The Espresso Book Machine (EBM). What else?

The EBM prototype was invented by St. Louis engineer Jeff Marsh. Its current form is made by ondemandbooks.com and the very first machine was introduced to New Yorkers at the New York Public Library in 2012. It proved to be such a sensation that it led to staffing problems and is no longer available there.

I found two EBMs in New York City, one in the New York University bookstore and one in the small independent bookstore run by Sarah McNally at 52 Prince Street between Lafayette and Mulberry on the Lower East Side. McNally Jackson has books on two floors and a knowledgeable staff. Raffe Jefferson has been there for just a year and a half and was trained on the machine by her colleague, designer Beth Steidle. Both are budding writers. Steidle’s work is experimental and she has used the machine to create not only a dissertation but a proof copy of a book she then sent out to several publishers.

Jefferson writes short stories and hopes to follow Steidle’s lead. “McNally Jackson is currently averaging a new client a day for the machine,” she says. With returning clients that amounts to approximately 12,000 users a year. A sign above the machine records that some 35,000 books have been printed so far and samples of  these books are available for handling.

“Our busiest time is between September and December,” says Jefferson, “and about 90 percent of the machine’s use is for self-published titles; the other ten percent is print on demand public domain titles from Google books. Some of the favorite public domain titles are Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (the 1885 edition), Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (the 1853 edition), Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (1892 edition) and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1869 edition).

Basically a Xerox machine with an ink jet printer and binder attached, the EBM is small enough to fit neatly into a corner of the store next to the café. Jefferson describes the EBM as “very user friendly.” The downloadable McNally Jackson DIY Formating Guide for the Espresso Book Machine is a great way to get acquainted with what it has to offer and what you need to do to realize your book.

At the push of a button, the Espresso Book Machine prints, binds, and trims to bookstore-quality. Covers are printed in full-color but, as yet, any text and illustrations inside are in grayscale. My guess is that it won’t be too long before color is available. The EBM can handle any font style or language.

Authors can see their own work in print or can customize a cover for a friend or loved one from a huge selection of some 3.8 million books that are in the public domain (and therefore copyright free) or out-of-print. Through EspressNet at the NYU bookstore, every original title printed on the machine is made available to other EBMs around the globe.

Google Books has some two million public domain titles and publishers such as HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, McGraw Hill, Hachette, and Macmillan, to name just a few, are making titles available. At both McNally Jackson and NYU, there are no minimum print runs so you can print as many or as few as you want, when you want. You can offer your book for sale or keep it private. Like McNally Jackson, the NYU bookstore has self publishing and pricing guides.

McNally Jackson also offers several service packages to help with the design and process. The most expensive includes the opportunity to have your self-published title sold on consignment in the store and on its website (you set the price and the bookstore takes only the cost of printing).

Works can be as short as 40 pages, or as long as 800 pages. The smallest book size is 4.5 by 5 inches and the largest is 8 by 10.5 inches, and you can trim to any size in between.

Costs depend on length of book and service package and bulk discounts are available for large quantities. The more you print, the bigger the percentage discount. The turn-around time depends on the quality of the original file, the size of the order, and how busy the machine is. McNally Jackson will check to see if your pdf is print ready, so there are no unexpected surprises. They also supply a proof copy to be checked before printing. The printing process takes from a few days to a few weeks, depending on number of copies. And if you submit your files electronically, you don’t even have to visit the store, although it must be said that it’s quite something to see your own book being printed. So be sure to make an appointment for that.

While costs vary according to copyright status, page length and any publisher fees, on demand titles from Google Books printed at McNally Jackson range from $10 for a book with between 40 and 99 pages to $24 for a book with between 750 and 799 pages. Packages range from $19 for one time print runs of no more than 10 books to $349 for all that is needed to get your potential best-seller to market, including access to freelance editors and writers, deluxe cover, and placement of the final product in the store. To print each book and cover the cost of paper and binding, McNally Jackson charges a $7 flat fee plus three cents per page. So a 100 page book would cost $10 to print a copy (with discounts for large print runs).

JOHN DERIAN COMPANY: A BIBLIOPHILE BUSINESS

A short walk from McNally Jackson on Prince Street to Second Street in the East Village takes you from state of the art printing to three small boutique shops owned by bibliophile John Derian. For the printed ephemera that Derian draws upon for his unique collection of home furnishings and decor, think gold edged pages, embossed bindings, marbled end papers, fold-out maps, and the sorts of fonts and color prints associated with 19th century botanical collections.

Derian’s love of old books, postcards and vintage maps turned him into a decoupage artist who used 18th and 19th century items such as handwritten letters and vintage atlases. He’s known for giving new life to the pages of old tomes by recycling them as wallpaper. His decoupage plates are sold in the first store he opened alongside accessories that you will find nowhere else.

Derian brings flea market treasures to Manhattan. His stores are a trove of the unusual and delightful. On a recent visit, I was not only entranced by the colorful melamine plates I had already seen online but with the range of items he has to offer, from holiday ornaments to canvas totes, from pocket mirrors to Moroccan poufs, vintage teddy bears and fine linens.

He’s collaborated with artists such as Benoît Astier de Villatte, Hugo Guinness, and the Canadian graphic novelist Leanne Shapton whose Important Artifacts and Personal Property From the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry takes the form of an auction catalog with photographs and captions chronicling a couple’s romance and ultimate breakup.

From decoupage, Derian’s business has expanded to include textiles, furniture, rugs and art. He opened a second store and then, when he added his own line of furniture, he opened a third in which you will find a selection of sofas, chairs and ottomans handcrafted by Cisco Brothers, the Los Angeles-based company that specializes in using “green” materials and methods for producing healthy environmentally-friendly and chemical-free items.

From the budding author using the latest in digital technology to the creative artist in love with the antique printed page, books continue to inspire. The world of publishing may have changed but books, it seems, will be with us for a good while yet.

For more information:

New York University Store

26 Broadway, New York, NY 10003

http://www.bookstores.nyu.edu/main.store/selfpublishing/

212.998.4678

McNally Jackson

http://www.mcnallyjackson.com/self-publishing

212.274.1160

John Derian Company Decoupage & Imported Goods

6 East Second Street between 2nd Avenue and the Bowery New York, NY 10003

shop@johnderian.com

212.677.3917

John Derian Dry Goods: Textiles, Furniture, Rugs and Art

10 East Second Street between 2nd Avenue and the Bowery New York, NY 10003

drygoods@johnderian.com

212.677.8408

John Derian Furniture Collection by Cisco Brothers

8 East Second Street between 2nd Avenue and the Bowery New York, NY 10003

furniture@johnderian.com

212.677.8409

All three stores open daily, noon to 7 p.m.; closed Mondays except during December, and closed Sundays in August.