Field Trip to the Tattered Cover at Lo Do by Diane Lane Chambers
On our field trip to the Tattered Cover in Lo Do on Saturday, November 3rd, we were treated to a demonstration of the Espresso Book Machine—the EBM. I was thrilled to see four of our new members there, two of whom I met for the first time! One even brought her husband along, so with Sue Luxa and me, there were seven of us—a nice cozy group, that allowed us all to see the inter-workings of the machine and hear the two gentlemen, John Zeck and Chuck Rugh, who taught us everything we wanted to know about the EBM.
The EBM has clear sides so we could actually see how the paper flows through and watch the machine aligning the paper, roughening the edges, and gluing the binding as it makes a print-on-demand, library quality book! You send them your print ready PDF file of the text, which prints black and white only, and a PDF of your cover, which prints in satin finish color. It’s as simple as that.
The EBM is a great way to go for self-published authors who are looking for an affordable way to print small orders of books (less than 1,000) with page counts of between 40-800 pages. The EBM managers can work closely with you to get your book published from inception to completion.
It was a beautiful sunny day and after the demonstration we walked to McCormick’s Restaurant for lunch. As typical of Pen Women we wasted no time getting to know each other a bit more over clam chowder and Asian chicken salad. Everyone agreed it was a worthwhile field trip.