b.cognosco

• Xlibris now offers color print-on-demand (PoD) publishing, but it isn?t cheap: Setup takes a few months, the book length is limited to 24 to 60 pages, and the author pays $999 to $2,499 before the first PoD "book" appears.

• The column ends with a striking number for the healthiest (and least "e") part of digital book distribution: Xerox printed 20 million b&w PoD books last year? and is demonstrating a $200,000 full-color PoD system. Twenty million in 2001: that?s a real business.

• Also, Bowker wants to do PoD as a form of test marketing for outof-print books?and Powell?s Books is getting into the PoD business with the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission, using Lightning Press for fulfillment.

• It?s always fun to see market forecasters "distancing themselves" from their earlier forecasts. A Reuters piece posted May 8, 2002 includes the following from David Card of Jupiter Media Metrix: "We haven?t issued forecasts for the [ebook] industry in two years, because the market?s going nowhere. E-books were a dumb idea. I am very negative on this market." And a Simon & Schuster VP says "everyone who works in this industry did not really think" that the aggressive sales forecasts were "what the future held." Naturally enough, S&S won?t disclose ebook sales but says that they?re "meeting its own internal forecasts, with year over year growth in the double digit percentage range."