The Economist has an interesting article on the Espresso Book Machines and the rise in digital book printing. You can read the article by clicking on the following link:
If I owned a bookstore, I think I'd want one of these machines to reduce inventory costs. I'd carry and display the stuff that sells regularly, plus a good inventory of new books. And then a nice machine and the Expresso Catalogue with three million other titles my customer could print up right there.
I haven't seen any books printed on the Espresso, Jack, but from what I've heard the quality is good. I think you've hit on the key selling point, inventory control. As the Economist article stated, 30% of all books printed are returned. That's a high percentage and a huge waste of paper and resources. Anything that could lower the return rate would be good for authors and publishers. The big retailers already have most of the advantages. Small stores could essentially have as large an inventory as the major retailers and more books would be "in stock" if all the customer had to do was print it on the machine instead of hope it was on a shelf.
A couple of universities in Canada (University of Alberta in Edmonton and McMaster University in Hamilton) are using the machines. A little whil ago a publisherhad a simultaneous book launch atthe two schools and used the machine as part of the launch party. As far as I know it went very well and people were happy with the quality of the books.
But I have heard that publishers and schools are going to bypass printed books completely and use a subscription service for e-books.
I will support anything that puts real books in people's hands. I don't really care for e-books, too many traps related to DRM and formats and other techno-crap, stuff you don't have to deal with when you have a nice physically real book on your shelf.
I wish my local bookstore had one, it would probably be still in business if it did.
Isn't it true Barnes and Noble were thinking of doing this one day? I think I heard that in a forum discussion last year. I'm gonna go read the article now!