Their proposed merger fell apart, but megaprinters Quad/Graphics and LSC nevertheless are looking more like monopolies.
Here are five areas of strategic impact that both publishers and printers need to look at and plan to work with.
Decades of historical precedent suggest that, now that the shortages and price increases of 2018 have ended, publishers should soon benefit from lower paper costs. But don’t hold your breath waiting for history to repeat itself. Prices for publication papers have stabilized since late last year, and the usual post-peak glut and price slashing don’t…
One of the great backlashes in our era of conglomerates is the steady growth of small-batch businesses. These are very small businesses that cater mostly to customers willing to spend more for a seemingly better and more controlled product offering. There are many happy consumers who will buy a four-pack of local brew for $16,…
No, I’m not here to trash paper. I’m here to discuss different usages of paper and the ones that are more likely to become quick trash. The recent Digital Book Printing Conference hosted by Book Business was a very interesting event with plenty of great presentations, facts, and figures. In particular, Marco Boer of IT…
Just a few years ago, there was panic among the education book publishing segment, especially with book printers. Tablets and e-readers were all the rage. Large school districts were distributing iPads and other tablets to students en masse. A 2012 Pearson Foundation survey found that 63 percent of college students and 69 percent of high…
The National Park Service turned 100 on August 25, 2016. Given this historic milestone, it seems appropriate to talk about how publishers can sell books through gift shops at parks and historic sites. Gift shops offer a significant opportunity to publishers, particularly those that create educational content about local history. Millions of consumers visit national…
Once you’ve got a clutch of titles on order, all approved and ready to go to print with stores eager to put your books on the shelves, the process of distribution can create challenges that unfortunately might be recognized too late in the supply chain. You’re probably all too familiar with the stress of having…
You’ve been hearing it a lot lately: Print-on-demand is changing publishing. Advances in technologies have brought reduced turnaround times, lower costs, higher quality, and less risk. As a result, businesses focused on print-on-demand are emerging, including independent, on-demand-focused publishers that serve both traditional book models and a changing vanity publishing marketplace. One group that’s often…
Books as a technology have been around for such a long time that it’s easy to forget that they were once major innovations themselves: Before the book there was the scroll, and the clay tablet before that, and it wasn’t until the end of the 16th century that modern indexes were invented, still largely the…
