Books don’t exist until you buy them. Neither do t-shirts, mugs, or stickers.

Before the nitpickers arrive, yes, many books still sit on shelves in dusty, musty, boxy warehouses waiting for shipment to a bookstore or your house. However, more and more commonly these days, at the moment you buy a book, it does not physically exist yet.

This is called print-on-demand.

Print-on-demand books are the literary equivalent of 3D printing. The files exist, but the physical product gets manufactured real-time.

But just consider that you can buy random, even obscure, books from anywhere in the world, without worrying whether someone had to take the time and effort to print and stock one on the off chance you wanted to buy them.

At one time, a hardcover book would have an initial print run, and it would only go back to print—or get subsequently released as a paperback—if that first run was deemed a “commercial success”. Any book falling below that threshold became a rare commodity, only available in thrift stores and through online reseller marketplaces like Amazon and eBay.

Publishers assumed it also became “unwanted”, but that wasn’t always the case. Poorly marketed books, late bloomers, and books whose topic became relevant in a different era might leave readers struggling to find physical copies.

In the future, “rare books” will be limited to collectibles (with artificial scarcity) and very old works.

And that future is now.

But wait! There’s more!

Books were just the tip of the iceberg, the test balloon, as it were. The concept worked well for books because printing is easier than, for example, constructing a bicycle. Or blending coffee. But it was the printing part of the book that was the key idea to expand upon. Nowadays, you can print t-shirts, stickers, customized mugs, and more. Specialized equipment can rapidly transfer a simple graphical image into a real-world product in short order.

There are a few different places doing print-on-demand books, and quite a few doing print-on-demand “merch”. Yes, quality can vary. Sometimes you can clearly see evidence that a product was produced in haste; most of the time, however, they’re perfectly fine.

This empowers your favorite indie authors, game designers, artists, and other creators to offer fandom shirts, mugs, stickers, and more without major up-front costs for a “print run”, or needing an entire storage unit to hold inventory for sale.

As an independent author, I get to save the money I’d otherwise spend on stocking inventory that people MIGHT eventually buy for the important stuff: commissioning amazing artwork for my books and products, in turn supporting other independent creatives.

My own store leans heavily on this concept. I don’t have a printing press, a textile factory, or a ceramics lab. I don’t have contracts with a sticker foundry or a mousepad orchard. And I don’t know how most of these products would actually get made normally.

What I do have is two print-on-demand services: one that handles books, and the other that works in multiple mediums. There aren’t boutiques out there filled with Black Ocean sweatshirts or Convocation mugs. Amazon doesn’t have a crate of them waiting for someone to order one.

You order something.

They make it.

It shows up *mumble*mumble* days later at your door.

THIS is the real future: a land of reduced waste, where products aren’t made on speculation but rather fabricated upon purchase. As the list of objects capable of being produced along this model grows, the more common this type of arrangement will become.

Print-on-demand.

Weave-on-demand.

Grow-on-demand.

Construct-on-demand.

These are the technologies of the future, and we have one of them right.

Try it. Buy a paperback book from your favorite independent creator. Any book. Maybe even one of mine; or a sweatshirt or mug.