As a possible sign of things to come, Europe’s first print on demand-only bookshop has opened in Paris. The shop belongs to famous publishing house Les Presses Universitaires de France (PUF), which had a historic bookshop in Paris until 1999. The new store is close to the old location in the Quartier Latin, but is much smaller, consisting of a few bookshelves, a sales counter, an Espresso Book Machine, and a cafe where customers can wait the few minutes it takes their book to be manufactured.
The paperbacks sell for the same price as a conventionally printed book and the Espresso Book Machine, made by Xerox and sold by On Demand Books, is only one of five in France. Approximately 3 million titles are available, which are printed from two pdf files, one for the text, one for the cover.