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Non-Tech : Borders Group (BGP) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sam Citron who wrote (348)	6/2/1999 5:45:00 AM
From: Neil H	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 411

Another article on same. Wednesday June 2 2:24 AM ET Borders To Provide Instant Books By JOHN FLESHER Associated Press Writer Within a few years, many bookstores may have a pleasing answer for customers who can't find the book they want on the shelves: ''Give us 15 minutes and we'll make you one.'' Publishers and retailers are taking notice of developing technology that will enable them to provide paperbacks on demand. It got a vote of confidence Tuesday from Borders Group Inc., the nation's second-largest bookstore chain. Borders announced it had acquired a 19.9 percent stake in Atlanta-based Sprout Inc. Terms were not disclosed. Sprout, founded in 1997, will provide the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Borders with books in digital form that it licenses from publishers. The deal will give Borders - and the reading public - access to older and out-of-print titles that the store wouldn't ordinarily carry, and may give the nation's second-largest bookstore chain new life as it tackles rivals Barnes & Noble Inc. (NYSE:BKS - news) and Amazon.com Inc. Other bookstores, including small independent retailers, are considering the technology as well, seeing it as another way to broaden their appeal to readers. ''It sounds like a winner for everyone - publishers, retailers and consumers,'' said Jerrold Jenkins, publisher of Independent Publisher magazine. Based in Atlanta, Sprout has about 1,300 titles in a wide variety of topics and expects to acquire thousands more, spokeswoman Ashley Gordon said. As envisioned, the system would enable Borders workers to download digital versions of books. Each store would have two digital printers, one for the cover and other for the pages. Employees could assemble the books in a binding machine that uses the same adhesive process normally employed for making paperbacks. ''You can deliver a book to the customer in 15 minutes,'' Ms. Gordon said. The average reader would see no difference in print and binding quality between the instant books and ordinary paperbacks, she said, although the machines can print color only for covers. The books' interior will be black and white. ''It won't be a great idea for some children's books, for coffee table books,'' Ms. Gordon said. ''But for most paperbacks, it's going to be almost identical.'' The price for the book will vary, but will be similar to prices for books now on sale in bookstores, said Borders spokeswoman Ann Binkley. Officials are not sure when they will begin making the books widely available. ''We don't know the demand that's out there yet,'' said Ms. Binkley. ''But we do believe there's a market.'' Browsing at the Borders store in Traverse City, Mich., John Major said he'd be more likely to shop at a store with on-demand printing. ''There've been a few occasions where I wanted something and a store didn't have it,'' said Major, 29, a videographer from Marquette, Mich. ''If I knew they could get it right away, that would definitely bring me in.'' But to social worker Jan Stump, 39, of Traverse City, instant books are contrary to what reading is all about. ''I can't imagine doing that,'' she said. ''I worry that the pace is getting too fast. Maybe sometimes we need to wait for good things.'' Sprout is courting other bookstores in addition to Borders, contending its system would help them clear their shelves of little-requested titles and reduce the number of books returned to publishers when anticipated sales fall short. How well it's accepted in the industry remains to be seen, though leading publishers are showing interest, said Stuart Applebaum, a spokesman for New York-based Random House Inc. The technology is ''in the incubation stage,'' he said. ''A lot has to be worked out before this becomes an accepted mainstream practice across the country.'' He declined to say whether the company had provided titles to Sprout. Andy Weinberger, co-owner of Readers' Books in Sonoma, Calif., said he finds the idea appealing but predicted some readers would never warm to it. ''You can pop an out-of-print book out of the toaster in 20 minutes and it may have the same words, but for someone who wants the original book that was printed in 1903 it won't be the same,'' he said.