I must admit that I adore going to Barnes & Noble or any other huge bookstore and meandering around for an hour or more. I peruse the shelves for things that interest me. I frequently discover other books that I had no interest in until I spotted the book on the shelf. Unfortunately, I believe such "browsing trips" will become a thing of the past before many more years pass.

One prevalent forecast is that most restaurants and grocery shops will always be substantial "brick and mortar" retail establishments. However, many other retail stores will either downsize or disappear totally. I'm sad that bookstores are dwindling to small places in strip malls, but I believe the predictions are right.

Operating a Barnes & Noble or any other huge bookshop must be very expensive. I don't have any numbers, but it obviously costs a lot of money to rent retail space, as well as provide heat, air conditioning, lights, shelving, retail point-of-sale computers (we used to call those cash registers years ago), employee wages, parking, and all of the other expenses associated with any retail operation. That only covers the store and does not include the cost of a single book.

Next, factor in the cost of books to be kept in inventory. Whether Barnes and Noble produces the books themselves (which is rare) or buys them from publishers, the cost of printing and distributing them can be enormous. 

A typical 200-page, 5.5 x 8.5-inch, black-and-white paperback book costs the publisher approximately $4 to produce, provided the printer makes at least a few hundred copies. For successful novels published in large quantities, the cost can be reduced to as little as $3 per volume. Hardcover books are more expensive, and adding a dust cover raises the price even higher. When you add in the author's payment (typically 50 cents to a dollar per book), the cost of marketing the book, the cost of packaging the books and shipping them to a retailer, and any other expenses incurred by the publisher and printer, you can see why books purchased at a local bookstore are so expensive. When you add the printer/publisher charges to the local store's overhead, it's no surprise that most books in retail stores cost between $10 and $30.

Of fact, millions of people have already recognized the numerous advantages of e-publishing. Consumers who buy a Kindle, iPad, or Android tablet discover that they can buy and read books much more readily than before. Prices can be lower at times, but not always. Most publishers aim to sell their books at "whatever the market will bear," therefore e-books remain significantly more expensive than the minimum required to cover electronic "printing" and distribution costs. One reason Amazon, Apple, and many others have invested heavily in e-books is the high profit margins! Many book publishers discover that selling e-books generates higher earnings than selling printed books.

These high prices will not persist indefinitely. High volume firms with little overhead expenses inevitably result in cheaper prices.

As much as I enjoy e-publishing and the capacity to store hundreds of books on a little tablet computer, I must say that I still miss paper books. Based on feedback from newsletter subscribers, I assume many others feel the same way. Many of us would buy printed books if they were reasonably priced and available instantly. Waiting for the mailman or the UPS driver is not a popular activity in a society that values rapid satisfaction.

A new business model promises to transform the publishing, distribution, and retail processes of books. In short, customers can now "have their cake and eat it too." That is, we may purchase printed books on almost any topic of interest within minutes of visiting a store, even if the store is not the size of an airplane hanger.

Instead of being limited to Nooks, Kindles, and other e-readers, new on-demand printing solutions like the Espresso Book Machine can print a book in minutes.

Instead of entering a store the size of an airplane hanger, imagine a future bookstore roughly the size of today's Starbucks. The store owners will not have to spend hundreds of dollars on shelving (which will eventually be passed on to customers in the form of higher prices); instead, the new store will have a few shelves that may display a few of today's most popular books, as well as a coffee shop and a few machines in the back.

The machines in the back of the store will be Espresso Book Machines or similar. The Espresso Book Machine is not new. I originally wrote about these machines over 18 years ago, in the October 2006 issue of my newsletter. I went on to write further articles over the years. You may learn more about Espresso Book Machines on Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espresso_Book_Machine. 

Using the "print a book while the customer waits" machinery enables for a large inventory of available books, even in a tiny business. Books may be digitally stored on big hard drives on a server in the back of the store. However, I believe it is more practical to store a few million volumes on servers in a company's home office and then connect every print-on-demand printer to the Internet. 

If a consumer requests a little-known "Persifor Frazer in Glasslough, Ireland, and his son, John Frazer of Philadelphia, 1735-1765," the bookshop machine operator can download the book in a minute or two and print it in another five minutes. The consumer then pays for the book and walks out with a printed copy under his arm.

NOTE: You can download that book now at http://www.archive.org/details/persiforfrazersd01fraz. However, you will need to either print it or copy it to your e-reader. Printing it on your home printer will most likely cost more in paper and ink than what the store charges for printing. Then you must determine whether and how to collate the book and bind the pages together. Even a 3-ring binder will cost about the same as a printed and bound paperback book purchased from a future retailer.

Coffee cafes have already been popular in bookstores. I do not expect it to alter. Indeed, under the new way of "print a book while the customer waits," providing a cup of coffee to a waiting customer may be an appealing service that attracts additional customers to the store. 

Where will the future bookstore get its books? Let's divide the answer into two categories: books that are no longer copyrighted and novels that are copyright protected.

Books that are no longer in copyright

Millions of non-copyrighted books are now available electronically. Archive.org (https://archive.org/details/texts) claims to have 5 million books and objects from more than 1,500 selected collections. Open Library (https://openlibrary.org/) contains about 40 million records from a range of huge catalogs and individual donations, with more on the way. (The Open Library hosts the catalog, but many of the books are hosted elsewhere. Google Books (http://books.google.com) contains several million more books. Obviously, there is a lot of overlap, but the overall quantity of non-copyright books must be far greater than 40 million

Future bookstores could presumably just download books from one of the massive online sources. I believe the bookstore's main office will need to make agreements with each online repository (Archive.org, Open Library, and others) and pay a licensing price for each book downloaded, printed, and sold. To pick a random quantity, maybe the licensing cost for each printed and sold book is fifty cents. That may not seem like a lot of money, but 50 cents multiplied by a few million books can add up to a lot of money for each online book provider. The revenue gained may then be used to keep the servers running and to purchase and print more books.

Books that still have copyright protection

Barnes & Noble, as well as all other retailers, already understand how to deal with publishers. They may need to make addendums to current agreements, but all major book publishers will welcome an extra channel for selling books, particularly one that does not incur costs for printing, storage, packaging, or shipping printed books.

I also view this as beneficial to smaller publishers, including genealogical publishers. Genealogical Publishing Company (GPC), for example, publishes both new and reprinted publications that are no longer copyrighted. GPC and other companies establish deals with authors, spend a lot of money printing the books, and then have to store them for an extended period of time while they are sold to genealogists. A smaller publisher, like GPC, frequently needs to compete for shelf space in bookstores. When was the last time you saw a genealogy book on the shelves of a large bookshop in a nearby shopping center? Barnes & Noble and other huge retailers can only maintain in-demand books on their shelves. Specialty literature, particularly genealogical books, are frequently only accessible through special order. Having any genealogical book available in minutes at any bookstore must be an excellent marketing opportunity for Genealogical Publishing Company, and other genealogy publishers.

Other issues:

Author payments

Selling books on demand, whether as printed books in stores or as e-books on the Internet, should not influence the writers' remuneration. A few famous authors earn large royalties, but the majority receive between 50 cents and $1 for each printed book sold. That figure should not alter for e-books or books printed using Espresso Book Machines or similar technology. The future bookstore will undoubtedly have to compensate the publisher for each book printed. The publisher, in turn, must reimburse each author in accordance with existing contracts. In fact, if a new distribution channel results in a significant rise in book sales, the authors will undoubtedly earn more money than ever before. 

Impact on Libraries

I see two benefits for libraries:

1. A library is not required to order, pay for, or shelve books in advance of a patron request. Instead of paying money up front in the hopes that someone will eventually check the book out, the library may wait until a patron requests a certain book and then print it using a Espresso Book Machine or similar printer within the library. The client could then take the newly printed book home in the usual way. When the book is returned, the library will most likely shelve it as usual, waiting for another user to request it.

2. Any library may effectively become a bookstore. Anyone might request a book, either as a library loan or for purchase. Each library would require a Espresso Book Machine or a similar printer. Upon request, the client could either borrow a book as a regular library loan or purchase it entirely. Book sales could help a library cover operating costs.

Yes, if the world transitions to small bookstores with Starbucks-sized storefronts, I will miss the chance to explore the books. However, I will replace that "loss" with the understanding that I can get as many printed books as I want or can afford, and at affordable costs. This will include both copyright-protected and unprotected literature. Books that are still copyrighted will certainly cost more since writers and publishers must be compensated. Nonetheless, the total cost of a "print on demand" book should be much lower than what we currently spend for a best seller at today's Barnes & Noble locations.

I'm looking forward to this new manner of purchasing printed books. I'll have a decaf coffee while I wait for my books to be printed, please. Then, maybe I'll stay at home and download the books to my iPad.