Answer: Digital Edge Printing!
This is a relatively new process to our shores and, in contrast to edge painting and gilding, automated, and thus suitable for industrial print runs: From 500 to tens of thousands.
The process uses inkjet printing to print CMYK to all 4 sides of your cards or books. While it will work fine for solid colored edges, it truly shines when you want to add vibrant colorful images to a book block. The more intricate the image, the better!
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it would be nice if you included links to printers in the US that currently offer this capability
A great suggestion! Unfortunately keeping track of which print service providers in the country currently offer which services is an extremely difficult and time consuming process. That being the case, we do our best to inform graphic designers of the services that are out there so that they can ask their own local psps if they offer them. We CAN say that this service is available from the folks at BindTech ( https://www.bindtechinc.com/ ). Hope that helps!