Image: Epstein announcing the 2010 National Book Critics Circle's Ivan Sandrof award for lifetime achievement; Epstein won the award in 2001 (photo: Wikipedia)
Just inside the entrance of McNally Jackson bookstore on Prince Street sits an enormous contraption, next to the café. It is an Espresso Book Machine that prints and binds books on demand. The machine, the brainchild of Jason Epstein, veteran of the New York publishing world, allows booksellers to print books in mere minutes, thereby giving them the ability to offer an almost endless backlist without the burden of having to order and store the titles. It also enables authors to self-publish their work and to permission their book to the Espresso network so that it can be sold at any Espresso location. This new innovation marries the new age of digital technology with the old world tradition of bookbinding, thus bringing the physical book into the future at a time when many are declaring its death. Read the rest of this entry »