Creative Cost-Cutting Strategies

“Right now, it’s hard to realize really big savings on manufacturing costs because paper keeps going up,” notes Marie Butler-Knight, longtime publisher of Penguin’s “Complete Idiot’s Guide” series. “At the same time, stores are wanting to carry just-in-time inventory more and more. So they’re not wanting to take in large orders into their distribution centers, and that means that, with the exception of blockbuster hits, print runs are smaller—and when print runs are smaller, costs go up.”