Just a tablet computer, your fingertips click on the long-cherished bibliography to place an order, and three days later, a well-printed book will be mailed to hand. In the big hidden book company, which is open from now on, you can try a "print on demand" fresh.

"Printing on demand" is to organize the production of books after there is a real demand, which effectively avoids the blindness of publishing. It makes the functions of all kinds of publishing and distribution institutions change fundamentally: the division of labor is broken, publishing can be directly oriented to readers, and books can be sold in bookstores. In addition, on-demand publishing has the characteristics of small print volume and no backlog of inventory, which makes it more and more popular in the market.

According to the person in charge of the Great Hidden Book Company, "Printing on Demand" focuses more on broken and out-of-print books. "Out-of-print good books" that have disappeared from the market for decades, such as comic books and niche academic books, are likely to come out again. At the same time, it will be customized according to the needs of consumers, with gifts or patterns. In terms of price, it is about 3-10% higher than the book price. At present, this "on-demand printing" project called e-printing has attracted the participation of many publishing houses and bookstores, and the initial resources have reached hundreds.

The emergence of "printing on demand" highlights the new mode of mixed operation of traditional physical bookstores. It is foreseeable that after its long tail ushered in a day of gradual scale, bookstores may skip the direct relationship between publishers and authors, and then gather a group of "self-published" authors. Facing the bright future trend, "on-demand printing" is still facing a series of problems such as printing factory cooperation, post-press logistics, cost control and so on. The most important point is that when digital documents are transmitted to the printing factory, there must also be encryption technology, otherwise pirated e-books will soon fly everywhere. The reporter learned that at the end of last year, the e-printing alliance, composed of eight bookstores, was unveiled in the Shangdu Li store of Sanlian Bookstore, and successively opened experience spaces in the modern bookstore of China, the Shanghai Foreign language Bookstore, the Economic World Book Company of Fudan University, the Shanghai Museum, and the Lansheng Cinema. This kind of business model similar to B2C will bring what disruptive innovation to the traditional publishing and printing industry.