Information Research Weblog

In the course of my browsing, I came across Walt Crawford's column in American Libraries on 'the PoD people' - that is, the phenomenon of Print on Demand. These days anyone with a word-processor can produce a book text that is good enough for publication - at least in technical terms, whether it is readable is another matter! Crawford suggests that a publisher might charge $100 to $160 to convert the text to PoD form and make a profit. Of course, many people are already producing books in this way - but putting them on their Web sites, rather than having them turned into print. Much of the stuff I have looked at would not be worth buying in any event, but one shudders to think about the problems caused for libraries by having to select what is good from this kind of output for the benefit of their readers. A number of e-book providers already exist, for example cBook Pro offers to guide you through the production process and claim s that thousands of sales can be made to impulse buyers. For the PDA market there are sites like Handheld Crime, which offer both free downloads to Palms and Pocket PCs and books for sale.

In other words, Crawford is probably right about the potential explosion of output.

Tom