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thehairymob
Malcolm
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Malcolm
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PostSubject: Print on Demand Article   Print on Demand Article EmptyFri Mar 19, 2010 10:38 am

The article notes what we already know: POD will find it difficult to overtake offset since it doesn't allow for a cheaper price per copy for top selling books.

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Malcolm
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thehairymob
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PostSubject: Re: Print on Demand Article   Print on Demand Article EmptyFri Mar 19, 2010 10:49 am

Thank Malcolm, nice article.
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lin
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PostSubject: Re: Print on Demand Article   Print on Demand Article EmptyFri Mar 19, 2010 11:37 am

It's not supposed to replace long run. Anybody working with it is aware of the roll-off numbers for any given job.

Tends to be betwee 1000-1500 copies. Less than that POD and order as few as practical. More than that, go offset and buy as many as you can afford because they're cheap. Only the first offset copy is expensive.

This is the way LightningSource does things now, the way a lot of publisher in the US are starting to impliment, the way short-run shops do it.

Maybe the UK is slower to adapt.
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PostSubject: Re: Print on Demand Article   Print on Demand Article EmptyFri Mar 19, 2010 11:46 am

My UK publisher (Kogan Page) has been thinking/working this way for a while now, mind they have a US office and that might be why.
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PostSubject: Re: Print on Demand Article   Print on Demand Article EmptyFri Mar 19, 2010 12:15 pm

It's probably more like journalists take a while to get around to "news" of this kind. Then much later, if we're lucky, they figure out what it means.

This line, for instance
Quote :
To some this is just “retail theatre”, a clever way to lure people into bookstores.

Actually, the Espresso is nothing of the sort and is more a gizmo for libraries and doc shops. It enables instant ownerships of books that might have otherwise been out of print, or are too obscure to carry and cost so much to ship it's easier to just print them out.
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PostSubject: Re: Print on Demand Article   Print on Demand Article EmptySun Mar 21, 2010 8:33 am

The article demonstrated the writer's lack of knowledge of the subject, and the comments demonstrated the readers'. Like this one:

"... I look forward eagerly to the days of NPD (no print demand) technology when we are all so comfortable reading books electronically that we don't feel the need to indulge in the archaic practice of having to hold printed paper hard copies in hand.

In my mind, we would only then have truly crossed the threshold from the wasteful and environmentally destructive past into the promise and potential of the digital age... "

This comment fails in two ways.

1. MANY studies show that people don't absorb material as deeply or efficiently when it's presented electronically as they do when it's on a printed page. Simply put, it is just harder to read, even if you can enlarge the text.

2. Electronic books and articles are not more environmentally friendly because:

a.most end up printed! When the computer became popular, all we heard was about The New Paperless Environment. Fast-forward 30 years, we're consuming more paper now than ever.

b. compared to paper, electronics is a huge polluter, both in the manufacturing process of their non-recyclable plastic and metal parts, and in their use. When you're reading an ebook, you're constantly drawing electrical power. What electricity do you draw reading a paper book? Paper books are also cheaper to make, consume no energy while using, can be resold, and finally, recycled.

Also, schools have to replace their electronics every 6 years (at least) due to obsolescence. So they are certainly not more economical.
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LC
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PostSubject: Re: Print on Demand Article   Print on Demand Article EmptySun Mar 21, 2010 8:49 am

"Authors upload their works free of charge and pay only when they sell a book. Espresso machines, meanwhile, can download and print any of the 2m out-of-copyright books scanned by Google and a few thousand from conventional publishers, though many are still wary of making their content available in this new form."

And this is just stupid. "Many" who? Publishers have no need for POD because they anticipate large enough sales to make offset printing worthwhile -if they didn't, they wouldn't publish the book in the first place!

The ones who find POD attractive are the ones who KNOW they won't have large sales. That's the Espresso machine's advantage, the ability to POD out-of-print and obscure books. Which is why it's landing in universities all over the place. Outside of academia, where do you really find this machine? It's a niche product for a niche (POD) field.
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lin
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PostSubject: Re: Print on Demand Article   Print on Demand Article EmptySun Mar 21, 2010 11:16 am

Quote :
a.most end up printed!

Not true AT ALL. People dont buy kindle books then print them out.

The "harder to read" is incorrect as well, depends very much on the technology of the screen. (Which, by the way, is rapidly evolving). People, in fact, (and as should be obvious) do absorb a LOT of information for computer screens. Try to think if you'd "get more" from this forum if it was printed out.
Quote :

b. compared to paper, electronics is a huge polluter,
This is complete, total, obvious, demonstrable crap. I've run into this before a couple of time. Maybe it's some sort of propoganda fed out by the paper industry. But all you have to do is think about it a little.

First of all, it's not like they go make computers or cell phones just to read on, and you toss them out when through. Much eReading is done on pre-existing equipment. This argument would be like saying it's cheaper to fly than bicycle because it costs money to build the bike path.

Second, it should be really, really obvious that a book (made of paper, printed with ink, moved at least four times after being printed--using gasoline--and the raw materials moved many times before that, run of on presses that drink power) doesn't have the environmental impact of converting a Word file to an ebook file then making it available for download.

The fact that people pass around this sort of obviously fallacious material is weird.
But at least it doesn't get down to all the "computers require rare minerals which can only be obtained by subjugating African countries by raping women" crap I've read a few times.
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LC
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PostSubject: Re: Print on Demand Article   Print on Demand Article EmptySun Mar 21, 2010 11:22 am

Someone is printing up lots of electronic files because our paper consumption has not gone down with the corresponding rise in computers -it has gone UP. I wasn't thinking of whole Kindle books being printed up, but of the many, other kinds of pdf files that get distributed.

And of course forum reading is more efficiently done on a computer, but we don't have to study or memorize what's being said. If it were more efficient for learning, the many studies that cover electronic vs. paper would have discovered that by now. Instead, they've declared the opposite. This has been covered pretty extensively in publications like the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Quote :
First of all, it's not like they go make computers or cell phones just to read on,

What else can you do with the Kindle?
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lin
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PostSubject: Re: Print on Demand Article   Print on Demand Article EmptySun Mar 21, 2010 11:25 am

Quote :
many are still wary of making their content available in this new form."

Absurd statement. Obviously not based on talking to publishers.

Quote :
The ones who find POD attractive are the ones who KNOW they won't have large sales.

Not quite. It's being used a lot to FIND OUT how sales for a title go. But certainly true in the context of refuting this article.
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LC
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PostSubject: Re: Print on Demand Article   Print on Demand Article EmptySun Mar 21, 2010 11:26 am

lin wrote:
But at least it doesn't get down to all the "computers require rare minerals which can only be obtained by subjugating African countries

No, that's the diamond industry. lol
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PostSubject: Re: Print on Demand Article   Print on Demand Article EmptySun Mar 21, 2010 11:33 am

There are a lot of reasons for paper costs going up. One of which could be increase in population. Information explosion. Increase in requirements for paperwork.

The kindle has no other purpose than to read ebooks. Duh. It's also, once purchased, capable of reading an indefinite number of books. So if you want to do the math on it, you have to figure out how many books would be read, etc.
Why I left it out. It requires more thinking.

And the biggest growth in reading things is actually on smart phones, not dedicated readers. Supposedly iPad-like things will be the future of it all...multi-use devices.

As usually, you make sweeping statements that are obviously baloney, then try to dodge off argument by trying to find a nit to pick, whether relevant or not.

Obviously electronic files are less a draw on the environment than making physical products for consumption. Most people realize that immediately and instinctively. Some have reasons to talk themselves into believing otherwise. Whee
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PostSubject: Re: Print on Demand Article   Print on Demand Article EmptySun Mar 21, 2010 11:34 am

As hysterical about diamonds as it is about computers. But there's always somebody who will buy into this sort of malarky.
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LC
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PostSubject: Re: Print on Demand Article   Print on Demand Article EmptySun Mar 21, 2010 11:38 am

lin wrote:
There are a lot of reasons for paper costs going up. One of which could be increase in population. Information explosion. Increase in requirements for paperwork.

Yes, and 4) people printing up paper files from electronic ones.

Quote :
The kindle has no other purpose than to read ebooks. Duh. It's also, once purchased, capable of reading an indefinite number of books.

It will also become obsolete soon. Duh. And new ones made for no better reason than to make it as easy to read as paper or add more bells.

Quote :
And the biggest growth in reading things is actually on smart phones, not dedicated readers. Supposedly iPad-like things will be the future of it all...multi-use devices.

Huge growth always happens in -stay with me- NEW technologies simply because there's nothing for them to do starting out but grow! Duh. This doesn't mean that everyone is throwing away their paperbacks so they can read on a cell phone. It means that some people just discovered they can hunch over their cellphone while waiting in line.

As usual, you make weaselworded statements that are obviously baloney, then try to find a nit that fits.
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PostSubject: Re: Print on Demand Article   Print on Demand Article EmptySun Mar 21, 2010 11:48 am

Knit?

I'm the only nit around here. I thought that had already been proved.
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PostSubject: Re: Print on Demand Article   Print on Demand Article EmptySun Mar 21, 2010 12:12 pm

I'd almost forgotten how much of LC's conversations (if you choose to call them that) consist of rewording other peoples' arguments into 'so are you but more of it' licks.

Meanwhile, cleared of her usual dust-throwing and dissembling (and lapses in remembering what she was trying to talk about) the original statement was that ebooks have more an environmental impact than paper books. If anybody is loopy enough to believe that, then there you have it.
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PostSubject: Re: Print on Demand Article   Print on Demand Article EmptySun Mar 21, 2010 12:15 pm

Uh, no, Lin, I didn't say ebooks had more environmental impact. I responded to the commenter's claim that implied they have NO environmental impact. That was just one of the things I responded to, but for whatever reason you've seized on that like the proverbial dog with a bone. Oh well.
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PostSubject: Re: Print on Demand Article   Print on Demand Article EmptySun Mar 21, 2010 12:17 pm

Actually, I seem to recall he was looking forward to a future.
And yeah, I "seized" on it because it was the main thing I noticed and responded to. And, of course, you tossed everything all over because you don't really care what's what, just getting a few points up on your private scoreboard.

And actually, this kind of sounds like you are saying "e" pollutes more than paper.
Quote :
compared to paper, electronics is a huge polluter

But I don't see where anybody was saying "NO impact". Just you.


Last edited by lin on Sun Mar 21, 2010 12:21 pm; edited 2 times in total
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PostSubject: Re: Print on Demand Article   Print on Demand Article EmptySun Mar 21, 2010 12:19 pm

Ok.
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