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And I've not seen Espresso in action, but I'll give it a look. We don't mind if somebody takes one of our files to the single-print presses: wish they weren't so darned expensive. One of my own hopes is to lighten the hit on my readers' budget---maybe leaving them the margin to take that option on a particularly favorite book.

I went and dug up the YouTube video thing. I had it on my blog a while back.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q946sf...
I do love the idea of a book made for you as you wait. I have no idea what the cost of creating a book this way works out to. I've seen how expensive the single-print, or even limited run, things can be. My mom was chewing over having a small bunch of books printed for family (my grandparents and their children were the first white people to live in the area of Africa where my grandfather was working). Then we saw the prices... OUCH.
Back to the Espresso machine thing. If the idea did work out cheap enough it seems to hold a lot of exciting possibilities. I keep visualising coffee/tea shops with book machines - pop in your book request, grab a snack and leave with your brand new book. :-)
From the selfish writer perspective, if my book is in the mix, the espresso-machine thing sounds like a brilliant idea. I wonder if that comment got a smile.:)

The funny thing is that the printers who are plugging this thing are the ones who printed my book. I'm hoping that'll be useful to me in the future!


We're working hard on our site to get our backlist into low-cost, professional quality e-books---in all our spare time. It takes about 80 man-hours to get the book ready, about as many to do the cover (which, alas, no reader is quite able to appreciate in full color yet, but most will, soon!) and 4-10 more to actually post it on-line. The process is, shall we say, labor-intensive, which limits how fast we can get books up.
But we hope to keep them generally and permanently available for a reasonable cost.
One of our ongoing projects is an e-pamphlet explaining to other writers how to do what we're doing, but since we're a work-in-progress and still learning, the 'how' is a moving target!
...but the bright side is that I'm actually writing to one of my all time favoutite authors and feeling all teenage weak-kneed hero-worship. :-D
I think the Chanur Alliance-Union series gave this world some of the most imaginitive and believable aliens ever. They are my favourite sci-fi series.
I've been lurking for ages waiting for the perfect moment my brain would form the perfect "I love your writing" reply. I figured it was time I gave up and just waved hello and said it as is. :-)
And while I'm here... looking at the stuff about ebooks on your website. Do you know anything about the Espresso printing (on demand as you wait) machines? I might have just told grandma to suck eggs, but if not... it looks a potentially very exciting move forward in the world of book buying/printing.
There's videos on YouTube on the machines, if you're interested. Look for OnDemandBooks.
Best Bookworm Greetings
Michelle