Professional Documents
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manage the long tail of backlist titles and the life cycle
niche titles.
By Jim Milliot
ven though the physical book market is more unpredictable than ever, print is here to stay, declares
Stuart Applebaum, spokesman for Penguin Random
House. But that doesnt mean it is business as usual
at the countrys largest trade publisher when it comes to its
manufacturing strategy. Our accounts are more conservative in
the amount of inventory risk they want to take on, and so are
we, Applebaum adds. Large print runs increasingly result in
excess inventory. Fast turns and shorter, more frequent print
runs are what we need now, and our partnerships with printers
will need to reflect this new paradigm.
What Applebaum is describing is the reality of todays publishing marketplace, in which print books and e-books will coexist.
Indeed, after the explosive but unsustainable growth of e-books
between 2009 and 2012, e-book sales slowed noticeably in early
2013. After increasing 33% in the first quarter of 2012 over the
same period in 2011, adult e-book sales rose 13% in the first
period of 2013, according to the Association of American Publishers. Data from Bowker Market Research also shows slowing
growth for e-books and a more stable market for print books.
E-books accounted for 13% of spending on books in the first six
months of 2012, with that share rising to 14% in the first half
of 2013. While the share of spending on hardcovers fell by three
percentage points in the same period, trade paperbacks rose
from a 33%share in the first six months of 2012 to 34% in 2013.
The new figures point to the difficulty of predicting the future
in an industry that is still evolving, but it has become clear that
print books will remain a very important part of the book business, albeit with fewer sales than in the past. To meet the changing needs of publishers, digital printing is often the best option.
The development of new digital equipment allows printers to
produce print runs ranging from one copy to thousands.
Printing flexibility is important because evidence continues
to mount showing that sales of e-books are much deeper in some
categories than in others, with fiction categories experiencing
the biggest e-book sales gains. According to Bowkers 2013 U.S.
Book Consumer Demographics & Buying Behaviors Annual Review,
e-books accounted for 25% of spending in the romance category, while penetration levels in nonfiction segments are much
lower. In cooking, for example, e-books made up just 6% of
spending and 18% of units in 2012. That fiction-nonfiction
divide continued into 2013. Sales of illustrated books in digital
formats have gained only a little traction in 2013. Quayside,
which publishes a large number of illustrated books, reported
that 5% of its sales were for e-books. Weve built the [digital]
platforms, now we are waiting for the customers to come, says
By Andrew Pate
P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY N O V E M B E R , 2 0 1 4
By Allen C. Schulz
By Andrew Pate
and
Teri Tan
he book publishing supply chain has been completely transformed by technology. New tools
ranging from electronic data interchange, which has
become fairly standard, to new, cutting-edge ink-jet
technologieshave reduced supply-chain costs and eliminated
steps in getting books from manufacturers to consumers.
Improvements in printing technologies, in particular, are giving publishers new ways to manage the supply chain, both
domestically and, increasingly, internationally. New digital
print platforms have far less waste and require less set-up time
than older ones, and that higher productivity allows lower
prices to be passed along to publishers.
One of the pioneers in supply-chain innovations is Strategic
Content Imaging (SCI), a New Jerseybased digital printer that
offers tailored supply-chain solutions to its customers. Dale
Williams, v-p of SCI, says that the companys Automatic
Replenishment Program (ARP) shifts the focus on reorders from
per-unit pricing to sell-through rate. According to Williams,
the program is perfect for publishers that are not ready to
embrace the true one-off POD mind-set. Even for those not
fully participating in the ARP program, the concept allows
publishers to keep inventory on hand at predetermined levels,
and that inventory can be shifted according to changing
demand. As a book moves through its life cycle, Williams notes,
another part of ARP gives publishers an option for a true printon-demand service when a books sell-through rate falls to a
certain level.
SCI offers these programs across an array of platforms, including HP digital ink-jet, Indigo, and others. It also has a broad
offering of finishing options, including hardcover binding.
According to Williams, having different finishing operations
in-house extends digital printing into many lines of publishing
that are just now switching over from offset. He says that recent
trends support his view of how publishers should interpret
manufacturing costs. For years I have argued for total cost of
ownership, rather than unit cost, to be the central concept in
managing a publishers supply chain, he says. Now publishers
are reaching out to us, and the discussions are about how fast
SCI can implement an ARP for them. Certainly the adoption of
high-speed ink-jet technology has been the primary cause for
this shift.
P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY N O V E M B E R , 2 0 1 4
By Teri Tan
Publishers should also look at the life cycle of a titleprelife, midlife, end of lifeto see where digital printing can be
applied to generate the most impact and best margins. Digital
printing can be used at any stage of a books lifefor producing
limited quantities of bound galleys for book events or for test
marketing prior to rollout (pre-life); for publishing promotional
freebies for market launch (new life); for generating customized
versions of popular and proven titles (midlife); or for reviving
out-of-print titles (rest of life) with on-demand printing. The
backlist is often a good starting point to try digital printing,
enabling new revenue creation by repurposing old content.
Given that most in the publishing industry have more experience with offset printing processes than with digital, however,
knowledge of the advantages of 100%-variable digital printing
is not enough to effect a shift in mind-set. Executive buy-in starts
with an internal analysis of the cash value currently locked up in
the warehouse and its potential write-off. The issue of total cost
vs. lowest printing cost per copy (which many production directors swear by) must be addressed. The next step is to determine
how much of the list (front and back) is digitized and catalogued,
and therefore how much is ready for digital printing. Armed
with that information, any publisher can start to unlock the
benefits of digital printing for its titles (and its bottom line).
W W W . P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY. C O M
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