Courier Corp.

Imagine going to the book store in search of a classic literary work, antiques guide or cookbook. To keep costs down, the search is narrowed to paperback titles only. Now, imagine the available selection is limited to poorly-produced detective stories. In today's bookselling climate, this scenario may seem unbelievable, but 60 years ago it was the norm. Back then, the paperback book market consisted mainly of cheaply made fiction books that sold for approximately a quarter. Not until Hayward Cirker, co-founder of Dover Publications (www.doverpublications.com), decided to remedy this disservice to readers, did the market undergo a transformation. "Cirker had

With his slight build, round rims and British accent, Harry Potter, the international star of the children's literati, has already inspired comparisons to beloved book characters including The Little Prince and Mathilda. Magical and quirky, the Potter series is reputed to be among the bestselling publishing cross-over hits ever with 55 million prints and counting in circulation in the U.S. alone. But what sets Potter apart from the pack is not so much the creativity of J.K. Rowling, but rather, the bite that the traditional print book series takes out of the multi-media world: toys, gadgets and a Hollywood movie replete with special effects

Ed Tenthoff, vice president of publishing Technology for Pearson Education; Fran Toolan, president of Quality Solutions; and David LaFauci, vice president and CIO of Courier Corporation, recently discussed the value of planning, information and time-saving initiatives with the editors of BookTech the Magazine. BTM: How would you define supply chain management (i.e., from the perspective of publisher, printer or technical services provider)? Tenthoff: A mutual understanding of requirements versus capabilities that then leads to the ability to maximize efficiencies and minimize conflicting goals. Toolan: From the perspective of a technical services provider, I would define supply chain management as the ability of

1. R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company is the leading North American book printer. The company's book operations provide a full range of integrated service solutions to help book publishers deliver communications to their customers. With seven book operations across the nation, R.R. Donnelley provides services such as * hardcover and softcover book manufacturing using web-offset, sheetfed-offset and digital printing technology; * conventional and digital prepress operations, including composition and page makeup; * custom publishing and print on demand; * packaging design and assembly; and * online services, in which customers' digital information is converted into Web-ready formats. 2. Quebecor World is the largest commercial

When it comes to computer-to-plate printing, more printers and publishers join the ranks of the believers every day, either experimenting with CTP with their four-color jobs, or switching to it by Tatyana Sinioukov Despite some limitations, as discussed by industry professionals below, CTP for four-color book production saves time and money and offers faster turnaround and higher quality than a conventional, film-based workflow. That's why more and more printers and publishers join the ranks of the believers every day, either experimenting with CTP with their four-color jobs, or switching to it completely. According to Frank Ervin, vice president of training and technology at

Maybe we have an answer to all our prepress problems. It's called PDF. That's short for Portable Document Format. It's Adobe's file format. It's not difficult to grasp the basic principles of what PDF is all about. But it takes more than the page I have here, so please go read our related stories, then come back. All done? Good. (OK, for those of you who hate to flip pages, you should at least know that a PDF file can be made from a PostScript file. PostScript is the final format of a file made with Adobe's PageMaker or Illustrator programs and Quark's QuarkXPress, among others.) So, you

Publishers want faster turnaround--and printers know it. By Rose Blessing Today's book manufacturers are under the gun. Yes, publishers have always wanted faster turnaround for less money. What's new is that today's publishers not only want it; they demand it--and expect to get it. And printers feel they have to provide it. As Bertelsmann's Wayne Taylor, president and CEO of Berryville Graphics, phrased it, "We are not in the book manufacturing business. We are in the publishing business. We have to be a partner with our publishing clients and give them what they want when they want it -- even if it means working