Paperight

Paperight was an award-winning experiment in distributed print-on-demand. We empowered a network of independent copy shops to print books out for customers quickly and legally. We aimed to put every book within walking distance of every home. How it worked: * Our member copy shops used paperight.com to download and print out books instantly. * We deducted a licence fee for each print-out from the copy shop’s pre-paid Paperight account. * The licence fee went to the publisher, less 20% commission for Paperight. Paperight print-outs were, on average, 20% cheaper than conventional editions. Importantly, they were available close to people’s homes, even in low-income and remote locations. This saved the costs of travel and the risk of stock-shortages. With this simple innovation, Paperight turned any copy shop, with any printer, into a print-on-demand bookstore. Paperight also enabled schools to tackle textbook shortfalls themselves by printing their own books for students and their communities. Paperight was seed-funded by the Shuttleworth Foundation. It won two international publishing awards, an SAB Innovation Seed Grant, and won the Accenture Innovation Index Award for small businesses. In February 2013 the company was formally congratulated by South Africa’s National Parliament, whose endorsement “acknowledges the importance of making published works easily accessible to millions of people throughout Africa; and … encourages publishers to register with Paperight in making their works accessible to all.”