Screen’s Truepress Jet520 full-color variable printing system has become a successful book printing solution. Screen is the perfect partner for book production thanks to the excellent print quality of the Truepress Jet520 and an extensive set of workflow tools.

Short-run and on-demand book printing is an increasingly growing market, especially in the non-fiction area, such as manuals, text books and workbooks. The method of estimating sales and corresponding long print runs is being replaced by reprinting books according to demand. By using digital technology, the printer can quote a unit price that remains the same regardless of the initial print quality or subsequent reprint. North American book printers, King Print and Flagship Press, have joined the growing group of printers who have discovered the flexibility of the Truepress Jet520.

The machine is the standard tool for the production of color transactional documents, on-demand newspapers and high volume direct mail, and the book market. They both specialize in the production of short-run books and manuals. It was due to their customers’ demands to move titles to color that led the companies to research and invest in inkjet technology. As inkjet press, there are no problems with the humidity content of the paper when using the Truepress Jet520.

With a highly competitive print marketplace, specialist outfits like Abbot are finding trading conditions increasingly tough. Some believe that diversification is not necessarily the answer and that focusing on specializing will help Abbot ride out the difficult climate. Abbot was established in 1920 as the Abbot Duplicate Book Company and originally manufactured books.

After a management buyout in July 2006, the company rebranded under its present name and moved to a similar site in Hemel Hempstead, which boasted a historic paper mill that produces 100% recycled paper, as one of its residents. The move to smaller premises was an opportunity to restructure for the good and bad times. Abbot was faced with an intensifying economic slowdown and are wary of diversifying, particularly into the digital field, which so many companies have decided to do in response to the economic climate.

Abbot is spending money to create a digital market. They believe that in a declining market or economic downturn, a focus on specialist traditional printing can be as effective as diversifying into digital. Abbot has concentrated on making sure it maintains a very lean inventory. It has kept paying its suppliers in terms, kept employee productivity high and grown capacity organically through internal investments. It also wants to invest in new equipment when the time is right.

Following the company’s earnings, BookMasters Inc. expanded their 90,000 square-foot warehouse vertically to house their 23,000 book titles. Sales have increased 15-17% in each of the last five years. Employee ranks have grown from 185 to 230 since 2005.

The boom is expected to continue despite the struggling economy as BookMasters seeks a bigger share of its market by offering new and expanded services. The Ashland-based company is a small player in the industry. They make about $25 million a year, from moving about $90 million worth of books annually. The company lays claim to representing more publishers than any other firm in the country. It works with 2,000 clients – four times as many as its next biggest competitor.

BookMasters’ niche is serving small and independent publishers, a segment that larger printers and distributors consider a nuisance. The company also embraces genealogists and poets who might sell fewer than 100 books, as well as fiction, nonfiction and educational writers whose sales might reach up to 400,000. BookMasters listened to their publisher clients and have evolved into the only fully integrated book manufacturer and book distributor in the world.

By acquiring ProPrint, the highest-audited circulation title servicing the Australasian print and graphics art industry, Haymarket Media Group has strengthened its global print and packaging portfolio. This purchase makes them the world’s pre-eminent print and packaging publisher and brings almost unlimited resources to ProPrint and gives its readers all sorts of new content. In addition to this title, Haymarket also owns PrintWeek, Printing World, Druck and Medien, and Packaging News among many others.

The print edition of ProPrint, published monthly, will be redesigned and its website overhauled with a local online editor able to draw on rich content from their international print portfolio. The first issue will be in June and will incorporate the PrintWeek brand values. Haymarket plans to coordinate their efforts both editorially and commercially, thereby extending their international footprint. The people who run ProPrint are excited by the acquisition as they would be going to a good home with a solid heritage in serving the print industry.

For some book publishers much of the decision-making process for designing book covers is based on instinct and not on consumer testing or scientific method. However, imagery, fonts, type sizes and color palette all work together to convey the contents of the book. For example, one can date a book’s cover by its typeface. If the book is written by a well-known author, their name will be displayed prominently with colorful bold type.

Romance novels tend to use colors like soft greens, happy yellows, and violet with imagery of a woman and man in a passionate embrace. A Tom Clancy military thriller will always feature his name in large, bold typeface accompanied by imagery of a large combat vehicle. Fantasy novels tend to be dominated with images of wizards or someone wielding a sword. The typeface is often Gaelic-looking.

Industry insiders point out that the airport is no longer the place where people purchase a book on impulse based on the cover design. Oprah Winfrey and other television influences have helped expand the definition of what constitutes a “mass market book.”