In 2015, with the purchase of the Shakespeare & Co. name in the U.S. and the successful acquisition of a lease to the store’s former 5,000 sq. ft. location on Lexington Ave. on New York’s Upper East side, Dane Neller, cofounder and CEO of On Demand Books (the maker of the Espresso Book Machine) and a group of investors took the first steps toward creating an indie bookstore chain. While Neller and friends are still shy of the number of locations that their namesake had at its height, six stores in New York City, the group plans to surpass that number next year…