Baker & Taylor Inc.

If predictability is a qualification for success, I suggest to you that we are, as an industry, in for a bit of a roller coaster ride for the next several years.

The end of a calendar year is always an interesting time for the publishing industry and perhaps never more so than the close of 2010.

Managing inventory is as much an art as a science, and like any art, a number of tried-and-true techniques exist that publishers may want to consider.

Short-run digital printing is unquestionably a technology whose time has arrived. Its quality and capabilities are improving steadily, and inline/near-line binding solutions promise to make an already capable technology even more so. Many digital printers' equipment and skills have improved to where we have moved away from the Henry Ford Model A approach to substrates ("any paper you want as long as it is (50) uncoated offset") to manufacturing of case-bound, four-color textbooks printed on (60) gloss coated stock.

Self-publishing and online services, e-books, and digital demand printing are joined into a new and powerful sector that is transforming the industry. For industry professionals whose career satisfactions and livelihoods are bonded to the future of the book, this new sector offers a wild ride and a venturesome future.

The first step in the RFP process is to identify the companies you wish to consider as potential bidders for your distribution business. You have, essentially, two options: specialist firms that provide distribution services to book publishers, and book publishers who handle distribution for other publishers.

Triangle Peak Partners and Adams Capital Management Invest in Digital Distribution Platform for Publishers