One-third of all the books in the world are bought by Americans. No nation devours more printed matter than we do. The more remarkable it is that we know so very little about printing and, not any less important, binding processes. Everyone seems to take it for granted that a blank sheet of paper may one day turn into a printed book page.

Printing is a delicate trade. Not too long ago it was considered a craft, even an art. If a family's son was admitted to be a printer's apprentice, everyone celebrated. It used to take years of education to become an accomplished printer. Once you had reached that level, you were Somebody, and a healthy income was guaranteed.

Printers often became publishers, with a list of authors and book titles of their own, and maybe a newspaper on the side. They determined what the locals would get to read. Printers were the early pioneers of the Information Age.

Technology has changed the landscape of the printing world enormously in the past fifty years or so. With the widespread availability of offset techniques, most other, centuries-old, techniques were blown out the window, and by the 1960s almost all books and newspapers were being printed on huge offset presses. At first without the help of computers, but soon enough that changed, too.

Computers were initially used mainly for text processing. The old-fashioned, bulky linotype machines were relegated to the dumpsters, and they made place for tiny desktop units that look much like your home pc. These computers fed the plate makers which, in turn, fed the presses. Then, in the late 1990s, also the plate makers had to roll over. Digital printing had been invented.

While offset printing still has a long and healthy life ahead, the digital printing technology has the entire future. Think of it as your own desktop printer, because it works the exact same way. A book text is stored on a pc drive and sent to a laser printer that prints the entire file within minutes. A separate color printer is commanded to print the cover. The cover receives a thin layer of lamination. Cover and text block are glued together in a binder, and finally the newly printed and bound book is trimmed to size by sharp blades in a trimmer.

There's your digitally printed book, indistinguishable from an offset product. Only the sharpest eyes of the keenest experts can tell that the text was run through a laser printer, and not off a press. The paper quality is the same, the binding and trimming process is the same. The only difference is that no traditional ink was used. Instead, the printer's toner (in itself an ink of sorts) was laser-burned onto the paper.

Digital printing is a huge money saver. That is why virtually every publisher has embraced the new technology. Currently it is mostly used for low runs of up to a few hundred copies at a time. Offset is still cheaper for longer runs of a few thousand copies or more. But many publishers no longer want those longer runs. Long runs require storage of yet-unsold books, storage costs money, and unsold books cost even more money. They prefer to print their books in accordance with real demand, and digital printing allows them to do exactly that. It can produce as little as one copy of a book at a time.

And so a new name was invented: Print On Demand, widely known by its acronym, POD.

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