Google Offering Print Versions of Online Books 147
Posted
by
timothy
from the ungreppable-format dept.
from the ungreppable-format dept.
carluva writes "Google is teaming up with On Demand Books to offer paperback versions of its collection of over 2 million public domain books. The books will be able to be printed using ODB's Espresso Book Machine, which is already in use at several book stores and libraries and can print and bind a complete, paperback copy of a 300-page book in less than 5 minutes. Google and ODB each get $1 in royalties per book sold (Google has pledged to donate its proceeds to charities and nonprofit organizations). See also ODB's PDF press release."
Re:Public domain!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
There are LOTS of public domain books that are very hard to get a hold of in paper form. No publisher is going to reprint 200 year old books on obscure topics for which there is a market of 20 people. This makes those books accessible to those that need them, without the economies of scale that publishers rely on.
And pending the much-debated acquisition by Google of orphan books, they'll be a lot more obscure out-of-print books seeing life again.
Re:Now *that's* circular (Score:5, Insightful)
One old, fragile book just became a dozen, semi-decent copies in the hands of those who actually value that information.
Looks good from where I am sitting.
Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:print? (Score:2, Insightful)
Assuming, of course, that you use solar energy to power your ebook reader and not batteries...
Re:English, motherfucker, do you speak it? (Score:3, Insightful)
According to Websters the 14th century:
* Main Entry: 2image
* Function: transitive verb
* Inflected Form(s): imaged; imaging
* Date: 14th century
1 : to call up a mental picture of : imagine
2 : to describe or portray in language especially in a vivid manner
3 a : to create a representation of; also : to form an image of b : to represent symbolically
Of course, he could have also made a simple typo/brain slip.
Re:print? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm one of those people that greatly savors a paper book. I have a nice little library of books that I keep around on two bookcases, and every now and then I'll browse over the shelves and go "Oh yea, I haven't read this one in 10 years, it deserves another go round." I also have a good sized collection of oversized art and photography books. These are particularly well suited to a permanent print format.
The thing is, if a major catastrophic event breaks down modern civilization, little to none of this electronic stuff is going to survive. There will be a big black hole, made especially worse with anything that was encrypted with DRM.
Think about things from antiquity that have survived to modern day - very well stored paper books, scrolls and things made out of clay, granite, stone and marble and very occasionally steel. That's about it.
Re:print? (Score:3, Insightful)
It can never be an exact comparison. Think about those used textbooks you used to get in college. Those things were probably used by dozens of other students. The environmental cost of that book essentially stops immediately after it is created. The same title on eBook on the other hand has continuing cost every time it is read.
Re:Public domain!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Meanwhile google's doing the smartest move: they're donating their $1 to charity. So both a: doing a good cause and b: earning themselves a tax break.
That's what I call smart capitalism.
I do think the book deal needs to have some of the issues kinked out, but overall google is taking this in a very smart way.
About damn time (Score:3, Insightful)
on demand printing started picking up.
really, I shoudl be able to go to a bok store and get the book I want made on the spot. At software stores, they should burn the software on demand.
Re:No thanks. (Score:5, Insightful)
I can download public domain books to my Palm.
In case you missed it, this is for people who prefer to read from paper over reading from a screen.
I see your Palm and raise you my iPhone. I can download books to that and have a very nifty app for doing so without having to turn pages (the phone's tilt controls the speed of the scroll) but to be honest I'm more inclined to read paper books. There's just something distracting about it being on a screen.
Re:why are royalties being donated to charity? (Score:3, Insightful)
Tax deductions. If they reduce the price by a $1 they receive absolutely no benefit. By taking your dollar and then donating to a charity they get a tax deduction.
Re:Public domain!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Donating money is a dumb way to make money, unless the returns you get (PR, market-building, etc) outweigh the lost dollars. That doesn't mean it's not a good idea, or a good thing to do -- it's just that the tax writeoff is never more than the amount donated, so net cash impact is never positive.
Re:Public domain!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Books yes, software no (Score:3, Insightful)
really, I shoudl be able to go to a bok store and get the book I want made on the spot. At software stores, they should burn the software on demand.
For book stores, yes, good idea. But software stores are basically obsolete. Geekoid, I don't know what country you live in, but in most industrialized countries, this would already be obsolete for software. The difference between the two markets is one of tactile preference; most people prefer to read paper pages still. But with software, there's no such factor. Software is software, no matter who burns it for you. And there simply aren't enough dial-up only users left to justify a physical software store based on convenience. Widespread broadband killed places like the old mall software chains. Google for "software shops in..." and the suggestion box is filled mostly with third world cities where broadband isn't widespread yet. Software is a tough brick-and-mortar business in the US, even for places like Office Depot now. If it's cheap enough... say, under a hundred bucks or so, you just download it yourself and pay via paypal or credit card. If it's very expensive, then you're planning the purchase, and will order via mail usually. On-demand software burning would have been a great idea during the dial-up era. But now it would be like "Hey, I've got this great idea for propulsion... it's called the steam engine!".
Re:print? (Score:3, Insightful)
Agreed. Print on demand is much more efficient in regards to resource utilization. Many books printed today do not sell completely and are returned to the publisher. They then tear off the covers, rendering them un-sellable. Hopefully these books are recycled into pulp for making more books.
With POD (print on demand) publishing, you get no wastage. The downside is the higher cost to publish a POD book. However, at the $8 level, depending on the page count or usefulness of the content, that price is within the relm of the reasonable. In another post on this topic I mentioned how much more it costs to do a full color photo book using POD publishing, which is way out of line with how much it costs to do a mass produced printing press version of same.
I have a feeling that we will not see a 100% electronic book world in our future, it will be a mix of POD and electronic. Even best-sellers could be POD produced at the store for anyone who wants them. No more inventory problems, except for bulk paper and ink supplies.
Re:print? (Score:3, Insightful)
And your mass-produced paperbacks will be yellowed flakes in a 100-200 years or so.
I've got books less than 50 years old that are already yellow and brittle, despite the lack of sunlight and low humidity in my proverbial basement.
Re:why are royalties being donated to charity? (Score:1, Insightful)
what the fuck are you talking about. If they reduce the price by a $1 they receive absolutely no benefit. By taking your dollar and then donating to a charity they receive absolutely no benefit.
The reason it is tax-deductible is so that they don't have to take your dollar, pay 30 cents tax on it, donate $1 to charity, and be 30 cents in the red for the privilege. That doesn't make sense.