>>>Recently I read a book (I have already forgotten the name and author), where they mentioned a process where instead of large book stores, these same stores print the book on demand. They had computer archive of every book and the customer comes in, sit at a computer, selects the book, and then goes to a counter to picks up the hard copy. Also, there were coffee stand as there are now.
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>>Such publishers exist on the web - look up lulu.com, trafford.com, these I looked up (and even sort of published some of my stuff there). BYOC.
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>Personally, I perfer to read from the hardcopys. If my computer screen would display the full page (and still be readable), and I could take it on the commuter train, I would reconsider. Oh, yes, I know, I could fork out a few grand and get one the new TablatePC. But I can not afford one right now, and the company does not think I need one. Oh well. :(

The whole point with print-on-demand is in the printing. I have opted for the HTML version only because my book there is basically a hypertext per se. Originally, the idea was to make it have chapters in pretty much random order, which you can't do on paper.

But the bulk of print-on-demand books are on paper. The economics of printing are upside down, compared with traditional publishing, because there's no stock. So you don't invest into printing thousands first, and then worry about sales. You print them as orders come, i.e. your printing service does that for you, and sends them to your customer. You do get some rebate if you order a few dozen or few hundred and sell them yourself, or if you have a distributor do that (but then you have to give them their rebate) - but you need no stock, no investment, period. Which means these guys have created a citizen publisher. Anyone can publish a book.