Special Report: Printers' Outlook: Not Your Father's (or Mother's) Book Manufacturers
David Wurster
CEO • BookMasters, Inc., Ashland, Ohio
Peter Beisser: What is your company's biggest challenge today?
David Wurster: We find ourselves balancing two types of clients. First, we are tying to offer our publisher clients a breadth of à la carte services: everything from design and editorial, to printing and binding, to fulfillment and trade distribution services. Constantly looking for better solutions in the form of customized service offerings is our full-time job.
Second, we have our book-buying clients. This ranges from Amazon.com and Ingram Book Co., to direct-to-consumer book deliveries, both in traditional print and e‑books. Trying to determine the best-selling marketing practices to the ultimate end-user is our other full-time job.
Beisser: What is your company's biggest opportunity?
Wurster: We have been in the printing business for 40 years, the digital-printing technology for 11 years, and distribution-related business for 25 years. Our publishing clients had the need for expanding production into foreign markets, and our foreign book buyers wanted our content delivered in a more effective manner. As a result, we now have a global POD program that covers multiple continents and serves multiple languages. The opportunity is bridging this gap whenever possible.
Beisser: What are some of the trends you are seeing among your publishing customers?
Wurster: Our publishing clients are in a high-speed mode to leverage their content in multimedia channels. The cost to properly create the content remains quite high, so with all of the other inherent market pressures, the concept is to creatively take that one file and use it in as many fashions as possible.
This includes the print-to-e‑book opportunity; however, it also includes the ability to better expose the content to the consumers in the form of applications, widgets and other Web-based tools.
Beisser: Have you made significant changes to increase your value to publishers or address the trends you are seeing?
