Embracing Your Future: the EBM...

Those who are inspired by a model other than Nature, a mistress above all masters, are laboring in vain—Leonardo daVinci

You pause at the front door of the eco-house that you and your partner designed in Vancouver’s Point Grey and pull up the collar of your jacket. The air is fresh with the promise of snow and you smile with thoughts of spring skiing at Whistler.

You glance at the time display on your Smart Glasses. You’ve decided to forego the WaveGate and walk to the café; you have plenty of time to walk through the hilly forested streets, with a view of English Bay. You want to check out the refurbished solar-house on Locarno Crescent that your company helped design. Based on a living model of Biomimicry, the house is the latest iteration of your company’s “symbiosis” model of 100% sustainability, in which people live in a cooperative and synergistic partnership with their environment. The house is an intelligent organic facility with self-cleaning floors and walls; heated, fuelled and lit by organisms in a commensal relationship. Everything works on a natural cycle of harmonious renewal and natural evolution. You smile, rather self-pleased. It has taken you a few years to convince the city council to accept this new model in community design. Now, it’s happening everywhere.

It’s April 12, 2074. A special day. And a special year. The year of the wooden horse in the Chinese calendar. Also called the green horse, it’s associated with spring, growth and vitality.  The horse symbolizes nobility, class, speed and perseverance. Horse energy is pure unbridled spirit. Playful, wild and independent, the horse has a refined instinct that flows through action and movement. Together, these symbols promise both chaos and great opportunity. And transformation.

The year of the wooden horse only occurs every sixty years. And sixty years ago today your mom turned sixty. You release a boyish grin at what you intend to do in celebration. On that day, sixty years ago, she celebrated her sixtieth birthday with the release of Natural Selection, her collection of speculative short stories about human evolution, AI, genetic manipulation, transhumanism, and the human-‘machine’ interface. She also celebrated the local printing of Metaverse, the third book of her space detective trilogy, The Splintered Universe. It was the second book to be printed by Toronto Public Library’s newly acquired Espresso Book Machine; one of only two EBMs in Toronto at the time.

A smile slants across your face as you remember what libraries and bookstores used to look like then. Both were struggling with a changing paradigm of reading, writing and publishing. Many of the older folk feared that books—print books, particularly—were going extinct as more exciting channels of communication like videos, interactive games and instant social networking took over. Of course, that didn’t happen. “Story” and “storytelling” were simply evolving and the paradigm shift simply embraced a new model that incorporated more diverse expression. You remember conversations with your mom about Chapters-Indigo, whose face changed from a bookstore to a gift store and tchotchke filled more and more of the storefront. As large bookstores struggled to dominate, the EBM—like its lithe mammal cousins in the Cenozoic Era—created a new niche for itself: the book ATM.

The size of a Smart Car, the EBM could fit nicely in a stylish café, housing and dispensing—Tardis-style—many more books than its diminutive size. In 2014, the EBM carried over eight million titles, including commercial books and out-of print gems. That number has tripled as virtually every publisher has embraced the Book ATM model to sell books.  

You inhale the tantalizing aroma of freshly ground and brewed coffee before you reach Zardoz Café. The retro-style café is a converted Edwardian-style house with high arched windows and a living roof overlooked by tall sycamore trees. You climb the stairs and enter the café. Its 2020’s style interior that your company helped design is decorated in earthy tones, avant-garde art, a forest of dracaenas and ferns and a stepped creek, complete with goldfish and crayfish. A shiny brass Elektra Belle Epoque espresso maker sits at the bar, dispensing the finest fair trade coffee.

Your sweeping gaze notes several people at the small round tables, enjoying good coffee and conversation; your special guest hasn’t arrived yet. You spot the WaveGate at the back, resembling an old English police box. Next to it sits the EBM.  Eager to do your deed before your guest arrives, you sidle to the coffee bar and catch Grace’s eye. She smiles; you’re a regular. You touch her wrist with your watch and the data passes onto her embedded interface. She taps her hand to process the book order—she insists that you not pay—then she makes your double-shot espresso—the old-fashioned way.  As she grinds and taps and runs the machine, you and she chat about skiing this spring. Just as Grace hands you a perfect crema-topped espresso, the WaveGate shimmers briefly and then its doors open like an accordian.

Your mom emerges from the “tardis”, smartly dressed in an early-century blazer and skirt, and grinning like an urchin. She resembles the seventeenth Doctor a bit, you decide—the first female Doctor Who, finally! Somehow—you don’t know how she does it—her old-fashioned style manages to embrace “retro-cool”. She’s arrived from Switzerland, where she is house and cat-sitting for good friends in Gruyeres. From there she still commutes—Tardis-style—as sessional lecturer at the University of Toronto, where she maintains a tiny book-festooned office.

Kevin Klassen

“Kevy!” she squeals like a girl, obviously happy to see you. You don’t cringe; you’ve grown accustomed to the ripples of interest your mom’s unalloyed enthusiasm usually creates.

“Happy birthday, Mom!” You seize her in a hug. “I’m glad you made it to Vancouver for your 120^th birthday.” Traveling the WaveGate suits her, you consider.

“I like the tardis better than you, I think,” she says, smiling sideways at you with knowing. She’s right; you prefer the old-fashioned way of traveling, without having to reconfigure your molecules from one place to another. In fact, you prefer the old-fashioned way of doing a lot of things, you decide with an inner smile.

“I have a surprise for you, Mom,” you say with a knowing grin. Your mom likes surprises. Her eyes light up and she beams at you. You glance at Grace with a conspiratorial look. She takes the cue and starts the EBM.

“Over here,” you say, steering your mom toward the EBM, already humming like an old tomcat getting its chin scratched. Your mom bends down to watch the pages spew out of the paper holder and stack neatly in a tray, then get snatched by robotic fingers as a colour cover is created then laid below, ready to envelope the book interior. After the gluing and binding, the robots trim the book on three sides then summarily send it sliding out a chute on the side.

Your mom has guessed what the book is; but she still squeals with glee when she sees it. It’s Metaverse, of course; the book she first had printed on the EBM in Toronto’s Public Library sixty years ago on her birthday.

Nina Munteanu proud with Metaverse just printed on EBM

“I just thought you’d like another book,” you say with a laugh. Like she needs another book. But this one’s special; it’s sixty years old today. Just like she was, sixty years ago—today. You pull out your PAL and point at your mom, as she seizes the perfectly bound book. “Let me take your picture!”

She poses with the book, looking like a kid with candy. You check the image and laugh. “There it is. You don’t look a year over sixty!” You grin at your 120-year old mother.

“And you don’t look a day over twenty-three!” she teases back. 

You give her a slanted smile. You’re eighty-three. 

Lisa Naccarato & Nina Munteanu in 2014

Beaming, she goes on, “I remember doing this exact thing sixty years ago in Toronto! Those same feelings of overwhelming gratitude and wonder are still there,” she confides. “I remember telling the CBC reporter who covered the EBM launch that it felt like a birthing.” She throws me a crooked grin. “Only the labour was on the computer instead of in the hospital!”

Visibly pleased and touched, she snatches me in a bear hug.

“This is the best present a mom could get from her son. Thanks for remembering. It’s been an incredible ride and it’s all been worth it.”

“Join me for a coffee; then I have a house to show you…” you say, smiling with pride.

The Espresso Book Machine

The EBM at the Toronto Reference Library

Many bookstores, libraries, and universities around the world are hosting the Espresso Book Machine® (EBM) by On Demand Books LLC (and associated with Lightning-Ingram). The EBM makes millions of titles available via the EspressNet® software and produces quality paperbacks in minutes at point of sale. The EBM is not a print-on-demand solution, but a powerful new digital-to-print channel that eliminates lost sales due to out-of-stock inventory or the hassle of returns.

Advantages:

• Readers: millions of books, multiple languages, made on demand for you.
• Bookstores, Libraries and other Retailers: sell (or lend) more titles without the extra inventory; capture the growing self-publishing market.
• Publishers: the EBM offers an additional sales channel and greater visibility to a publisher’s titles. It also avoids out-of-stocks and eliminates returns.
• Authors: earn additional income otherwise lost through the used-book market.

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist and internationally published novelist of science fiction and fantasy. In addition to eight published novels, Nina has written award-nominated short stories, articles and non-fiction books, which have been translated into several languages throughout the world. She currently teaches writing at The University of Toronto and George Brown College.

Publish Your Book with Toronto Public Library’s EBM

Rhea Hawke emerges from EBM

In 1448 Guttenberg invented the printing press, which shifted the zeitgeist of an entire world. Up to then books were large and heavy and painstakingly hand-copied by monks—sometimes over years. Medieval illuminated manuscripts were prized like original art and read by very few. The printing press allowed stories to move from the closeted elite to the world citizen. The printing press made it worthwhile to read.

During the days of packaged content, leading storytellers were journalists writing for newspapers and magazines and authors published in traditional publishing houses. Now distribution channels matter less and anyone with an appropriate device or channel of distribution can be a storyteller. We follow individuals we trust…not “the experts” we don’t know. This includes bloggers, indie writers, and self-published authors. 

Now the Toronto Public Library has the Espresso Book Machine (EBM), a cool device that can create an entire book in five minutes. The EBM has made it worthwhile to write.   

Using the EBM computer to start the process

“It puts the tools of creation back in the hands of people who have the imagination or the creativity in the first place,” Dawn Connelly of Toronto Public Library’s Asquith Press told CBC Radio reporter Lisa Naccarato in a recent interview about the library’s new Espresso Book Machine (EBM) and Asquith Press.

The Smart Car-sized EBM dominates the centre of a tiny room tucked in the back of the Digital Innovation Hub of the Toronto Reference Library just off of Bloor and Yonge streets. Because its sides are made of Plexiglas with a good visual of the machine’s inner gears, rollers, cutters and clamps and multi-colored wires, the EBM more resembles a prototype of some industrial AI than a printing press. Indeed, that’s not so far from the truth; once green-lighted, this elegant fully automated machine with onboard computer performs the entire book-making process within a few minutes and with minimal human intervention. The EBM is really three machines in one: a Xerox high-speed copier that prints the text block; an Epson color printer creates a high resolution cover; and the robotic machinery does all the cool stuff of assembling and putting them together to produce and deliver a final perfectly bound book.

An ATM for Books

Cover of Metaverse emerges from EBM

I first saw the Espresso Book Machine in action at New York City’s BEA in 2009 and was very impressed The EBM is the fastest and most agile book-to-market distribution channel, according to Lightning Source staff, who smugly demonstrated their 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—my textbook on how to write—became one of the first titles offered by the Espresso Machine, which eventually found itself in major retail bookstores and libraries throughout North America and abroad.”

On Demand Books has a strategic alliance with

EBM binding Metaverse text and cover

Lightning Source/Ingram Book Group (the world’s largest wholesale distributor of books), with a digital database that includes over one million titles from over 8,000 publishers, including my US and Calgary publishers. You can find several of my books in that data base (e.g., Darwin’s Paradox and The Fiction Writer). ODB and Google signed an agreement giving EBMs immediate access to over two million public domain Google Books. These books are available on the EBM via EspressNet, EBMs custom software that connects to a vast network of content, both in copyright and out. The EBM also has access to more than one million public-domain books through the Open Content Alliance and titles from other repositories.

The Toronto Public Library and Asquith Press have joined many bookstores and libraries that offer print on demand books worldwide. In Canada alone, the following have an EBM: University of Alberta, University of Waterloo Bookstore, McMaster University Bookstore, University of Toronto Bookstore, Simon Fraser University Bookstore, Edmonton Public Library, University of Victoria, McNally Robinson Bookstore in Winnipeg, Chronicles of Crime in Victoria, Oscar’s Art Books in Vancouver, Books Inn in Miramichi, and the Edmonton Public Library.

Self-Publish withAsquith Press

EBM trimming Metaverse

While the EBM provides an efficient book-to-market distribution channel, the Toronto Public Library is focusing on the machine’s rapid printing service for creative people and groups wishing to self-publish.

The press offers quality and affordable paperback book printing for anyone wishing to self publish; whether it’s their own work of fiction, a dissertation, group anthology, conference proceedings, family history or memoir, a cookbook, journal or collection of pictures. The list is really endless.

Unlike most printing companies, Asquith Press can produce as many or as few books as you want. As long as it is formatted perfectly, the book will come out store-quality. The press can print books of all sizes and width. Ten copies of a 150-page book would cost $145. At about $15 per book, that’s a lot less than most book printers charge. Asquith Press also offers a proofing service on your first printed copy. The library also provides access to resources that you need to learn about producing a professional looking book. This includes an information session and a book-printing demo and free workshops on the use of Microsoft Word and Photoshop.

Nina proudly holding newly printed Metaverse

Dawn invited me to participate in the June 9^th  unveiling of Asquith Press and I was delighted when they agreed to print the latest book of my science fiction trilogy, Metaverse, published by Starfire.  I witnessed the Smart Car-size EBM literally create a store-quality book from two files on a jump drive.  I peered through the Plexiglas sides as the machine printed and assembled the pages, created a professional quality cover then glued the book block and bound it to the cover with a final trim to all sides. Within five minutes the completed book slid down the end chute of the machine in a peremptory clunk. I snatched the book and examined it—I  couldn’t tell the difference from what the printer for my USA publisher produced and this wonderful thing in my hands—and grinned.

This was very cool!

Learn How to Create a Professional Book Interior

I am teaching several workshops through the library on how to format the interior of your book with Microsoft Word so it can be printed on the EBM and will look professional.

To register for a class, contact the Digital Innovation Hub at the Toronto Reference Library or call the library at 416-393-7007. Classes are free. 

Contact: Dawn Connelly; AsquithPress@torontopubliclibrary.ca.

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.