Is this the worst idea ever? A digital book printer for the home?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-13/on-demand-books-bets-on-authors-who-want-to-print-their-own-paperbacks.html

by wtvanhest • 14 years ago

5 8 14 years ago

Title change please. The article has a much less sensational one.

And no, this idea has merit. The number of things I have wanted to print, but not wanted to use a printer to do so, is non-zero. I would gladly pay to print copies of public domain/CC-licensed books.

Though, this has it's own implications for Creative commons by itself. Now that it's not outlandish for someone to print a real (That is paperback quality.) copy of your book, are we going to see a drop in the number of books that authors distribute under copyleft licenses?

I mean, it was easy to justify it to yourself when any paper copies people produced of your book were likely to be no better quality than a stack of printer paper. Now that theres the potential for individuals to use something with output closer to that of a printing press, how can authors expect anyone to buy a publishers copy?

wtvanhest3• 14 years ago

The reason it is the worst idea ever is 2 fold: 1) It is completely unnecessary to waste paper and natural resources on a book that will only be read by one person. 2) There is a perfectly good medium for reading low volume books which is readily available.

Rather than printing a classic yourself, it makes far more sense to buy a high quality copy. This will really be targeted at low volume books.

pwg• 14 years ago

> 1) It is completely unnecessary to waste paper and natural resources on a book that will only be read by one person.

Why do you consider that a book produced via this process would "only be read by one person" (implying that mass printed books are more likely to be "read by more than one person" than books produced via this process).

This book will be just as physical an entity as the mass printed book, and have all the DRM free attributes of a mass printed paper book. It could be loaned to another, it could be donated to a local library after having been read, it could be donated to a book drive at a school.

The only way it would differ from a mass printed book is simply by not having been mass printed. Otherwise I would think its chance of being read by one, or more than one, person is identical to a mass printed book.

cleverjake• 14 years ago

They have one of these at my local University, and it was actually really cool. I was able to get a number of out of print books from Google Books. It is also neat for small bookshops that can't afford to pre order dozens of books that may or may not work out, but rather print them on demand.

willlangford• 14 years ago

Just the title alone shows how closed minded you are. I can see uses for this type of machine in many situation.

What we call the internet today was build on these 'book' printing machines. Bell Labs had several of them with people to run them to print out design specs just for example.

If you think it's a bad idea, it really shows how little business experience you have not only in business but in the world itself.

No matter how digital and handy things become, there is no replacement for paper. There are just some situations that an tablet or notebook can't replace.

wtvanhest3• 14 years ago

I regret writing the title. It is linkbaitish and does seem close minded.

There is a market for these, but it is small and personally I hope it doesn't last long. After using a kindle I will never buy, rent or checkout another paper book again.

dubya• 14 years ago

The University Bookstore in Seattle has one of these. It's kind of neat to watch.

There's a lot of momentum for digital books now, but traditional books will be around for a while. That may actually help this machine, as getting a traditional publisher to print your work gets harder.

Is this the worst idea ever? A digital book printer for the home?

Related Stories