Book industry bibles make the transition to digital printing

Published by Thorpe-Bowker, Books In Print is the industry’s bible, with Australian Books In Print covering 2,300 pages of information about 100,000 titles, while also providing contacts for over 18,000 publishers and distributors. Thorpe-Bowker has been the publisher of Australian Books In Printt and New Zealand Books In Print for 42 years and had always opted to use traditional offset printing, until now.

Positioning digital in a new light

“This is a watershed moment for digital books,” said Simon Lane, Fuji Xerox Australia’s Production Printing Systems Marketing Manager. “It means digital printing is recognised as a fundamental supply option in book manufacturing and represents the direction in which the Australian book industry is heading.”

dbooks, owned by Adelaide book printing giant Griffin Press, is a digital book printing company with offices in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. It printed the 2004 hardcover Australian Books In Print and New Zealand Books In Print utilising Fuji Xerox DocuTech equipment, after being selected as print supplier for the publication by Thorpe-Bowker in April. According to David Watts, dbooks’ Business Development Manager, printing on a large-scale with Books In Print proves to the Australian book industry that a publication, irrespective of page extent, can be economically produced on Xerox digital print equipment.

“From an industry perspective, this really positions digital printing as a viable and effective option for book production,” said Watts.

“For Thorpe-Bowker, printing Books In Print with dbooks meant we could deliver the flexibility, quality and cost savings for which high-quality digital printing is renowned.”

Thorpe-Bowker has a unique approach to the marketing and sales of Books In Print and New Zealand Books In Print, with both publications sold by advance subscription and then reprinted on-demand. This approach prompted the company to begin looking at digital printing as an option.

“Our decision to print them digitally was all part of a change strategy for the company to better control the volumes of the book, while minimising costs and time to market,” said Andrew Wilkins, Thorpe- Bowker’s Publisher.

“First, we decided to automate the typesetting, which had always been done traditionally for the past 42 years. Then, we began re-evaluating and looking at different ways to produce the book.”

The two key factors which influenced Thorpe-Bowker’s decision to make the change from traditional offset to digital was the cost of printing Books In Print and New Zealand Books In Print (due to the immense page length of each publication) and the inability to control volumes, with leftover stock or “dead books” frequently stored at the publishing house’s Melbourne site.

Delivering flexibility and controlled volumes
“Using digital printing gives us greater flexibility all-round,” continued Wilkins. “ The controlled, shorter runs means that if 20 more orders come in for the books later in the year, we can produce them on-demand and eliminate storage of dead books.”

Rating dbooks service, Thorpe-Bowker gave the company top marks, with dbooks delivering both on price and service.

“One of our key areas of concern when we were selecting a printer was the quality of the binding, which is a really big job considering the size of Books In Print and New Zealand Books In Print. However, using traditional hand binding, dbooks did a terrific job and we are very happy with the outcome.”

“Overall, we were very impressed by the quality of the service that dbooks delivered, as well as the quality of the finished product and their competitive price,” continued Wilkins.