Chad Clark's Open Journal : 2006-03-10

I love books.  I even like how they come in different sizes and colours. (I
say this because I am going to talk about binding in a moment.)

I do not like it when a book is out of print and I can't find it.  Why won't
they print another run?  I assume because they have to setup the machines
and print N * 1000 copies and store the copies, etc.

I think I may have heard the following idea come from Brewster Kahle or
maybe from someone working on the Google Library project.

  Digitize books.  Print and sell the books on demand.  Make it so people
  can go to the library/book store and get a printed, bound copy in 10
  minutes.  The binding might not be really nice (like spiral or similar)
  but the content is available.

I hate dealing with on-line ordering and waiting/paying for shipping.
I like to sample a few random pages before I buy a book.

For my example someone recommended "How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World"
by Harry Browne.  chapters.ca says the book is not available (but it would
be $40 (CAN) if they had a copy).

amazon.com lists the book at $25 (USA) but doesn't have any copies.  The
site points to "7 used & new" copies from other sellers.  The prices range
from $104.95 for a "Very Good" condition copy to "$469.27" for a "New" copy.

Start a good print-on-demand book service with tons of books available and
you will make money.

/Chad

PS: I don't actually care about this particular book.  I can't believe it
sells for 4 to 18 times the original cost and the publisher is not printing
more copies.  (For all I know more copies are being printed but neither
Chapters or Amazon mention that the book is on back-order.)

PPS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster_Kahle
http://print.google.com/googleprint/library.html