If Kodak has its way, the future of books I’ve been envisioning since 2008 may finally become a reality. Can you imagine book kiosks where you can select among millions of books from bestsellers to obscure out of print classics? Hundreds of thousands of locations conveniently located nearby? Print books on demand with the ease you thought only available with eBooks?

Here’s the news from Publisher’s Weekly: “Kodak is working with On Demand to integrate the Espresso Book Machine, currently available in only a handful of bookstores and libraries, with the KODAK Picture Kiosk at 105,000 locations worldwide. The integrated kiosks, which will begin to go live late this year in the U.S., will have more than 7 million books available through On Demand. The kiosks will also have the capability to handle self-published books.”

You can read more about this game changing news at Publisher’s Weekly. I am very, very excited this morning!

Well, that was fast! Just days after the judge accepted the Department of Justice settlements from HarperCollins, Simon and Schuster and Hachette, Amazon has begun to discount eBooks from HarperCollins. Read more about it here. Guess the authors will just have to suck it up if their contracts pay royalties on net amounts. Sigh…

I played hooky this week and went to see a San Francisco Giants game at AT&T Park. Wonderful sunny weather. Spectacular ballpark. Great food. Only bummer was the 50-game suspension of Giants All-Star MVP Melky Cabrera for performance enhancing drugs. WTF? In the wake of the Barry Bonds steroid scandal, you’d think baseball players, especially the ones in San Francisco, would know that us fans have zero tolerance for cheating. Ouch. I think I just watched our playoff chances go up in smoke…or down with an injection…or something.

Anyway, here’s a picture of me at the game before I heard the bad news. You don’t want to see one of me afterwards…

I like the indie bookstore owner’s perspective here. I just hope it’s enough. We vote with our dollars, readers. Buy indie when you can!

“Every independent bookstore is facing challenges right now. It affects your marketplace, but it doesn’t have to kill you. You don’t open a bookstore to make a million dollars…. I don’t think customers should have to rescue us. It sounds too desperate. I don’t think we’re in that position and I don’t think that attitude is helpful…. People still really like to hold a book in their hands. We provide service to a market of intelligent people. Even with e-readers and competition from the big chains, we’ll do OK.”

–Pat Catven, former bookshop owner and now a manager at Canadian indie Perfect Books in Ottawa

From Shelf Awareness, 7/13/2012

Magical Mayhem. Coming October 2012. From my newest venture: Tween/Teen ePublisher Ambush Books. But more about the company next week when we launch. For now, here’s the yummilicious cover!