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From: Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
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Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2025 16:41:07 -0600
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On 1/4/2025 10:40 AM, Paul S Person wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Jan 2025 18:39:31 -0600, Lynn McGuire
> <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 1/3/2025 4:57 PM, Ahasuerus wrote:
>>> On 1/3/2025 5:19 PM, Garrett Wollman wrote:
>>>> In article <vl9mo7$3fsk$1@dont-email.me>,
>>>> Lynn McGuire  <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I am surprised SFBC lasted this long.  I have not ordered a book from it
>>>>> since the early 1970s.  I think that “Dune” was the last book I bought
>>>>> from it.
>>>>
>>>> I wrote a blog post more than a decade ago about how the book-club
>>>> business model no longer made any sense, and I am quite surprised that
>>>> it took the private-equity investors so long to come to the same
>>>> conclusion.
>>>
>>> Certain business models can take a long time to be phased out. For
>>> example, telegram services are still not quite dead (see this list of
>>> companies -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
>>> Worldwide_use_of_telegrams_by_country). AT&T shut down its 411 service
>>> just 2 years ago -- see https://www.bloomberg.com/news/
>>> articles/2022-11-08/at-t-to-end-411-directory-saying-farewell-to-
>>> telephone-operator-era
>>>
>>> I wonder how paper books will fare over the next 50 years.
>>
>> I would say that over half of dead tree books that I buy from Big River
>> are POD (print on demand).  I suspect that MMPB is going away and will
>> be replaced with POD trade paperbacks for the novelty of them.
>>
>> The real question is, is POD going away ?  The POD machines are
>> reputedly high maintenance and not totally automated, yet.  From what I
>> can tell, Big River has over a dozen POD machines across the USA which
>> cost well over a million USA Dollars each.
> 
> The local drug store had one for a few months, but it apparently took
> up more space than it was worth. IIRC and understood the signage
> correctly, you could write your own book, format it properly, and
> print it out. As well as, no doubt, a catalog of books written by
> others.
> 
> That drug store is going away, which is a great loss. According to the
> employee who advised me of this, it is because they lost their lease.
> But they didn't have much stock (the parent company is just emerging
> from bankruptcy so stock requires cash) and so can't have been doing
> much business. Well, except the Pharmacy, I suppose.

The Amazon POD machines are the size of the drugstore.  Supposedly they 
print, collate, print the cover, apply the glue to the collation, glue 
the cover to the collation, cut the book to the appropriate size using a 
guillotine.

The book covers are made on separate machines feeding to the process. 
The collations are B&W, the covers are high definition four color.

Lynn