Lightning Source

Lightning Source is a business unit of Ingram Content Group Inc. Ingram Content Group Inc. The company is the leading printer and distributor of print-on-demand books. Originally incorporated in 1997 as Lightning Print Inc., the company is headquartered in La Vergne, Tennessee. Its U.K. operations are based in Milton Keynes. They also have operations in Maurepas, France and Melbourne, Australia
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Lightning Source has printed over 120,000,000 books for over 24,000 publishers around the world. The Lightning Source digital library holds over 7.6 million books and adds several hundred thousand each month.

Lightning Source works with publishers, unlike some other print-on-demand service providers such as Lulu that work directly with authors. The company prints books in any quantity, from as little as a single copy, and has local printing plant supplying the book distribution chains in the U.S. and Europe. It gives its customers access to the most comprehensive bookselling channel in the industry in both the United States and the United Kingdom, including distribution partners Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Gardners and Bertrams.

Printing Options

Lightning Source can print laminated paperback books and hardback titles on demand in a number of standard sizes and formats. With an emphasis on automation and standardisation, the company doesn't offer "special" options or services such as paper dustcovers, colour inserts, special inks or lacquers, or other special-effect cover processing options.

Espresso Book Machine

The Espresso Book Machine 2.0 is a compact (3.8 feet wide by 2.7 feet deep by 4.5 feet high) book-printing kiosk that can be installed in a bookshop or public place to print, bind and cut books on demand while the customer waits. The EBM 2.0 can download encrypted book files from Lightning source. Publishers must specifically give permission in order for their titles to be included in the scheme.
The EBM project can theoretically allow faster access to LS print-on-demand books in regions where there is no existing LS plant, and where shipping times would otherwise create significant supply delays. It also allows large bookshops to offer their customers almost immediate access to a wider range of titles than could be held onsite. However, to date, uptake of the Espresso Book Machine system has been low.

E-book services

Lightning Source has an e-book supply system that can serve up protected PDF copies of books from their library through a vendor's site, if a publisher chooses to participate.

Although the scheme originally allowed electronic LS editions to be sold on Amazon alongside "conventional" print-on-demand editions, Amazon withdrew from the scheme. Lightning Source still offer their e-book on demand service to publishers who have a suitable vendor website, and supply eBooks to their retail partners Powells.com, Ebookmall.com, Diesel-ebooks.com, Fictionwise.com, Booksonboard.com and eBooksAboutEverything.com, but have no online retail outlet themselves to sell eBooks.

In March 2010 Ingram Digital (a wholesaler part of the same group) warned its customers it might not be able to sell them e-books, as most large publishers were moving from the wholesale model (publishers offer wholesale discounts, and the final price is determined by retailers) to the agency model (publishers set the retail price and offer agents a commission, so retailers earn more by buying direct from the publisher rather than via a wholesaler). This was triggered by the eBook pricing dispute between Amazon and Macmillan, and the imminent launch of the iPad. However, in April 2012 the U.S. Department of Justice sued Apple, Macmillan, and others on the basis that the agency model was anti-competitive and a form of collusion used to fix the price of e-books. As of April 2012, Ingram Digital was still supplying e-books via its CoreSource programme.