SHORT STORY VENDING MACHINE

Book Vending Machine

What is the most unusual thing that you have ever had out of a vending machine?

Bet no one has had a short story?

Recently the residents of the southern French city of Grenoble have had just that. The city has become known worldwide for a simple and entertaining use of vending machine technology. A company called Short Edition has worked with the French Library service to allow over 600 short stories to be made available to Short Edition. When we say short, we do mean short as the stories are one of three option lengths, one, two or five minute reads.

Short Edition has over 141,000 subscribers and 1,100 authors contributing new and fresh stories regularly to make the Short Story Vending service bigger and better all the time. It was founded by Quentin Plepe who told journalists, “The city was on board from the beginning. What they really liked was the fact that the dispensers distribute culture through the city in an original way. Stories are an important part of our life. More and more people don’t take the time anymore to sit and read a book. This is a way to have a little ‘bite’ of a story, just for a couple of minutes.”

At the moment Grenoble has six devices installed but the plan is to expand the service across France and already there is talk that Short Story Vending Machines will soon be popping up at mainline train stations in the UK too.