I Love New York: BEA and Lightning’s Espresso Book Machine

I came to NYC recently to promote my new writing guidebook The Fiction Writer, at Book Expo America (BEA), North America’s largest book fair. The Fiction Writer was showcased along with other new books for 2009 at the BEA, which was held at New York’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Centre, located in the heart of Manhattan with a view of the Hudson River.

The fair was huge and I was enthralled, if not slightly overwhelmed. I’ve been to several World Science Fiction and Fantasy Conventions; but this trade fair was ... well… HUGER (is that a word?). Over 1,500 publishing houses, retailers, printers and associated industry people displayed exhibits at the book fair. Upcoming titles (like The Fiction Writer) in all kinds of formats and genres were showcased. As I entered the Javits Centre, feeling like a character in one of my SF books, the floor buzzed with the frantic energy of industry representatives.
I surfed a moving sea of forced smiles and sweaty hands clutching advanced reading copies and galleys of the latest summer and fall releases.

The fair kicked off with a one-day writer’s conference where my friend, super literary agent Donald Maass (author of The Career Novelist) gave a workshop.

The fair was jam-packed with great panels on publishing and writing given by CEOs, editors, publishers, marketing managers and designers. Some of them included Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired and bestselling author of The Long Tail; Jared Friedman, co-founder and chief technology officer of Scribd; Nick Bilton, design integration editor of the New York Times and Mark Rotella, senior reviews editor of Publishers Weekly, among a list that read like the Who’s Who of the literary world (well, I was in New York!). A common thread ran through the talks and panels devoted to the “new wave” in internet marketing, POD publishing and online access to everything to do with publishing. Many compared the coming changes in the publishing industry with the recent (and unnecessary) devastation in the music industry as a result of changes in the music consumer-producer relationship. Panels addressed how—in the age of Google, YouTube, iPhones, Blackberries and social networks—publishers and authors can position themselves to successfully surf—rather than be swept under by—the Internet wave. Here are some choice things—if not totally new—that I gleaned from talks with titles like “Twitter for Dummies”, “Stupid Things Booksellers and Publishers Do”, “How Publishers Can Succeed Online Where Others Failed” and “Wired and Receptive: Reaching Boomer Book Buyers Online”:

• “Books” are going to change to accommodate the multiplex crowd of new portable-wearable technology, and readily dispensable and disposable entertainment. This will include what books look like, how they “behave”, and how they are accessed and purchased (see my reference below to Lightning’s new Espresso Machine). Publishers are actively looking for ways to accommodate our youth’s—not to mention our own—new love affair with the cell phone-iphone-netbook
• Authors need to promote themselves by connecting with their audience in a genuine way. Readers want to know YOU. Get out there on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace. Do cheesy YouTube videos of you doing anything. Start a blog. LOL! (read my guidebook on blogging).

I met my publisher at Starfire at the BEA and she took me aside to catch Lightning Source’s debut of its “Espresso Machine” (how did she know I really needed a coffee?). She found me eagerly devouring the last of a quiche from Grazies at the food court downstairs. I was a culinary island of focus amidst the agile whispering of people closing deals over rubens and cheap beer. I’m familiar with this ironically clandestine activity in a wide open social setting, though in the places I’ve seen it—and taken part in—it’s usually been in a bar.
“Come on!” my publisher urged me. “I have something to show you.”
When we got there, I realized that the Espresso Book Machine (EBM) didn’t make coffee. It’s actually the fastest and most agile book-to-market distribution channel, according to Lightning Source staff, who smugly demonstrated their miniature printing machine/computer to an excited audience. The EBM, which was named by TIME Magazine in 2007 the "Invention of the Year," is essentially an ATM for books. It automatically prints, binds, and trims perfect bound paperback books on-demand, at point of sale. I saw the thing in action and thought it was slick. So, it didn’t give me coffee; it gave me the next best thing—a printed book in four minutes! The Fiction Writer will be one of the first titles offered by the Espresso Machine, which will eventually be found in major retail bookstores and libraries throughout North America and abroad. Besides Starfire, other participating publishers currently include John Wiley & Sons, Hachette Book Group, McGraw-Hill, Simon & Schuster, Clements Publishing, Cosimo, E-Reads, Bibliolife, Information Age Publishing, Macmillan, University of California Press, and W.W. Norton. The list is getting bigger as I speak.
Back in April Publishers Weekly reported five Espresso machines in the U.S. (with 10 others in locations throughout Canada and the U.K.). Dane Neller, CEO of On Demand, said that "within a relatively short period that number will be increasing dramatically.” In April, the first Espresso Book Machine was installed at the InfoShop at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., which loaded 200 of its titles online for the three-month test period. Two additional Espressos will be installed at the New York Public Library and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, in Egypt, in September.
If you have a chance to see one, go check it out and surf the wave.
The wave of the future.

Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of novels, short stories and essays. She coaches writers and teaches writing at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. For more about Nina’s coaching & workshops visit www.ninamunteanu.me. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for more about her writing.