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The End of ABC's Print & Publish Service
It's the end of an era: after 15 years of faithful service and countless books printed, our Betty the Book Machine will retire on 31 January, 2026.
Thank you to everyone who has used Betty to bring your books to life. We're proud to have been part of your creative journey and achievements.
Betty will continue printing while supplies last, so please place your orders early if you'd like a few more copies of your book.
If you're looking for alternative self-publishing options, we recommend IngramSpark: https://www.ingramspark.com/
Our Betty the Book Machine is an Espresso Book Machine (EBM), once named "Invention of the Year" by Time Magazine. It provides a revolutionary direct-to-consumer distribution model for books. Put simply, Betty is an automated book-making machine. The operator selects a title to print, and within a few minutes a book emerges: bound, trimmed and in full-color."
Here is an "employee interview" with our Betty the Book Machine.
You can find Betty the Book Machine and some book samples in the White Room on the second floor of The American Center in Amsterdam.
Betty, our Espresso Book Machine in Amsterdam was "launched" on Thanksgiving Day, November 25th 2010.
The AnyBook Award competition was held in 2010 to celebrate the launch of our first EBM.
All the winning entries were collected and published in the first book printed on our Espresso Book Machine.
Redesign The World is available via Betty!
Print on demand (POD), sometimes called publish on demand, is a printing technology and business process in which new copies of a book (or other document) are not printed until an order has been received. "Print on Demand" developed only after digital printing began, because it was not economical to print single copies using traditional printing technology such as letterpress and offset printing.Wikipedia
In short, POD titles are not kept in stock by publishers and instead are printed and bound whenever they receive an order.
There are several requirements for printing an item on the EBM: it must already be digitized, we must have access to the digital file, and we must have a clear agreement with the rights holder to print copyright-protected works.
The machine produces a softcover (perfectbound) book. It can print color covers as well as interiors. Images may or may not reproduce well, depending on the source file.
As long as the typeface is recognised by the machine, it can print whatever you want. English, Dutch, Chinese, Arabic....
Print-on-Demand titles are part of our regular book database and on the detailed book info page you'll see whether it is a print-in-store title.
Print-on-demand titles can be ordered via our regular online and in-store search and order system. Production time is a day depending on the queue. Prepayment is preferred.
If a book is already prepped and loaded onto the EBM, it can be printed in 7-10 minutes. Depending on the number of orders in the queue, you might have to wait a little longer.
Yes, if you own the rights to the work or have received permission from the rights holder to print it.
See Self‑Publishing with Betty for all you need to know about publishing, printing and binding your book.
Unfortunately, no. E-books, and their authors, are copyright protected, so we cannot print e-books without express approval of the copyright holder(s). If approved, the book would also need to be in the correct format for printing.