Sense of Adventure

… behold the Espresso Book Machine!

(Well, not literally: there’s no picture.)

Friends, I give you the future of publishing, dead-tree edition. Not necessarily this implementation; but here’s where it’s going.

By odd synchronicity I was discussing bind-on-demand, book-on-demand technology last night with some ASFS friends, in the hospital room where we visited one of our number who’s recovering (nicely, thank you) from knee-replacement surgery. Okay: I was ranting about it; it’s one of my hot buttons. I’m sure this comes as just a huge surprise to you.

I’m not sure why there’s still such resistance to reading on handheld devices, although one of the many great things about the Kindle is that it’s bringing a lot of readers around to e-reading.

For some reason a great many people get defensive at the notion of e-books, as if somehow they’ll snatch the dead-tree books out of their hands and off their bookshelves. How, exactly?

Look: I hugely prefer reading on my Palm TX Handheld. I love having, literally, a library of fiction and non-fiction books in my shirt pocket, especially waiting in long grocery-store lines. I love being able to search electronically, for, say, the introduction of a character who’s just been mentioned again without my retaining any idea in Hell who she is. I love, and make frequent use of the backlighting (lack of which is one of my several beefs against the Kindle.)

But look, kids: fond as I am of reading on my PDA, I’m also fond of money. So as a professional writer, I say: you only want old-school books you can hold in your hand? No problem! If you want them in Sumerian cuneiform on clay tablets badly enough to pay for ‘em, I’d love to find a way to accommodate you. All I really care about is that, though my sins be scarlet, my books be read. And that I get paid for ‘em, of course.

And I think bind-on-demand technology, such as the Espresso, is how that’s going to work in the future.

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