About Print On Demand (POD) Books
Our Self-Publishing and Print On Demand services are permanently closed.
Please see this page for more details.
The information presented below is maintained for archival purposes and may no longer be accurate.
What is a "Print On Demand" book?
Exactly what it sounds like: a Print On Demand (POD) book is created if and when there's a request for it.
What are the benefits of POD?
For us as a retailer, being able to print certain books "as needed" means that we don't have to stock extra inventory in our stores. It also means there is less cost and less of an impact on the environment because there is no need to ship huge quanities of books around. Rather than storing a book in a warehouse and loading it into a truck to ship, we can print the book when requested right inside of our store!
For the consumer, the benefits are two-fold: First of all, finding, downloading, and printing a book with our Espresso Book Machine usually only takes an hour or two - which is a lot faster than getting the book shipped to us from one of our suppliers (usually ordering in a book takes a week to two weeks, depending on where it comes from). Secondly, with POD books you can get access to titles that have gone out of print, even books that haven't been printed in decades (see the following section for more details).
So what types of books are available as POD with the Espresso Book Machine?
The catalogue of books that can be made with the Espresso Book Machine (EBM) is extensive: there are over 7 million of both in-copyright and public domain titles. And that catalogue is always growing: On Demand Books, the company that designed the EBM, strives to make as many books as it can available as PODs. So far On Demand Books has partnered with companies like Penguin and HarperCollins, and they're constantly working towards making their POD catalogue as extensive as possible.
Unfortunately, as large as the POD catalogue is, it is far from complete. Many publishers are hesitant or unwilling to allow their books to be made as PODs. This is why you won't see such things as the newest Dan Brown or Game of Thrones book in the list. For now, the majority of On Demand Book's POD catalogue consists of out of print titles and books that are in the public domain. In otherwords, the catalogue consists primarily of titles that no longer have copyrights attached to them.
You can search On Demand Book's Print On Demand catalogue right on their website.