POD's tipping point approaches

A recent Publisher’s Weekly article (available only to subscribers) discusses Print-On-Demand (POD) technologies, with particular focus on the Espresso Book Machine (EBM) by On Demand Books (ODB). The simplified concept behind POD is to enable bookstores to print needed books while eliminating storage stockouts, expanding inventory options while reducing actual physical inventory, and reducing other supply chain costs, thereby reducing total costs while enabling more content sales.

The EBM, which according to the story now retails for $185,000, is one option that bookstores today have to fulfill book orders in-house. ODB CEO Dane Neller says the rise of e-books has contributed to some of the EBM’s success by opening up new opportunities for print. He is also quick to point out that the EBM is not a POD solution, but a sales solution.

In the last year, ODB established a partnership with Xerox. According to Xerox’s first Thought Leadership Workshop about the EBM, many bookstores are using the EBM to compete with Amazon. For some stores, they see the book machine as the “salvation of the neighborhood bookstore,” says Jeffrey Mayersohn of Harvard Book Store. Stores that have book machines are seeing great growth at about 1,000 to 2,000 books per month in some cases.

Other options in the print arena include Hewlett-Packard’s Raptor machine, which has been in testing with three college stores for the last year. A philosophically different approach to the in-store solution, the Raptor could provide EBM with direct competition.

Recognizing that not all stores can invest in an in-store solution at this time, and seeing that there are other challenges to building a successful POD business, NACS Media Solutions (NMS), a subsidiary of the National Association of College Stores, is currently running a pilot program to create a regional POD network that can enable short runs of 1 to larger runs of 1000 or more, with rapid turnaround. The regional approach offsets downtime and will expand to provide printing "close to to the point of consumption" in order to reduce shipping and other supply chain costs. The NMS service will also utilize a cloud-based repository and include other service offerings designed to increase store success at POD.

We will be releasing more information about this program, our partners, and the pilots as we proceed over the next few months. If all goes well, NMS expects to do a soft launch in January, with a full launch expected perhaps as early as next March’s CAMEX.

HP in-store print-on-demand pilots

This semester, Hewlett Packard (HP) is conducting print-on-demand pilots at three universities. NMS helped to facilitate the pilots with the college stores at Portland State University, The University of Kansas, and Arizona State University. The stores are utilizing HP in-store print-on-demand technology to print and bind course materials. Each college store has worked out agreements with publishers to print a select number of titles. In addition, books in the public domain and open-source books can be printed. More information about each of the pilots can be found below.

A recent article from AZCentral.com discusses the pilot at ASU. McGraw-Hill, John Wiley & Sons, and Cengage Learning have all made a limited number of titles available for the pilot. Some professors who own the rights to their books have also made the titles available for printing. As a result of the pilot, the textbook prices for several courses have reduced. Dennis Mekelburg, associate director of ASU Bookstore, estimates that students could save about a half-million dollars each semester if five percent of ASU classes switch to print-on-demand.

In another article Estella McCollum, director of the KU Bookstore, commented on the pilot at KU. She noted, “With this, we’re essentially never out of stock on the printable titles. We just have a more efficient option for purchasing.” The KU Bookstore hopes to expand the print options next semester to include: student projects, books, portfolios, cookbooks, and other projects.

An article about the pilot at Portland State University points out that the program is good for students, the store, and the earth because it reduces prices for students, keeps sales at the store, and reduces wasteful printing and transportation. The store hopes to get more publishers on board by next semester so that they can increase the amount of content that can be printed.

More information about these pilots will be available prior to CAMEX in February 2011.