There's Growth in Them There Stacks

Lacagnina says that automated workflow and new color printers such as the Xerox iGen3 Digital Production Press and Kodak NexPress 2100 are making self-publishing cost-effective. His company streamlines order-processing by taking orders over the Web and receiving content as XML files and Adobe PDF documents. "On 50 percent of our orders, we never talk on the phone to the author," Lacagnina says.

Self-publishing specialty companies are creating book templates so authors will only have to supply formatted text and images, according to Lacagnina. This makes digital printing more cost-competitive with offset since the setup costs are small, and the supply chain costs of order-processing and invoicing are almost eliminated.

In addition to enabling more authors to self-publish, Lacagnina says digital printers can open doors to foreign markets. Digital printers are cost-effective for creating 50 to 100 copies of a popular U.S. title for emerging regional markets such as South Africa, Singapore or the former Yugoslavia.

Software and Hard Copy

The axis upon which book production software rotates has begun to shift, and will continue its realignment in 2005.

Cary Drake, technology manager at printer Anthology, a Von Hoffmann Company, says that 60 percent of the publishers he works with have made the switch from the long relied-upon Quark to Adobe's InDesign and Creative Suite applications. Drake says the Creative Suite "allows publishers to retain control of the process," all the way up to getting ready for plate.

Publishers are increasingly using document-management systems that store files locally on their servers while allowing designers and editors to log in remotely, according to Drake. "This leads to a reduction in the iterations of page proofing and provides greater control," he says. Adobe's InCopy is replacing Microsoft Word as the de facto application for making revisions during editorial workflow, says Drake.