Workflow

There are a host of practical tips for managing print production in the digital age—many are highlighted in this issue of Book Business. While working on a list of such tips—from effectively positioning outsource partners to support your supply chain goals to building content workflow around an XML-based strategy—I was diverted by a conversation with Howard Goldstein, vice president for strategic sourcing at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH). Goldstein was recently relocated from Boston to Orlando to help oversee HMH’s major transition to outsourced manufacturing management and offshore manufacturing.

Implementing a new content management system (CMS)—whether a traditional CMS, a Web CMS (often called a WMS), or both—is, to say the least, a daunting task. Integrating past content and anticipating future needs, all while trying to meet the requirements of present constituents, leaves the process riddled with potential for missteps. It’s no wonder experts in CMS implementation stress the need for adequate preparation.

Imagine being able to tell your grandkids that you worked on the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper” album, or on “Star Wars”—playing an important role in the creation of a cultural phenomenon that anyone would be proud to claim as the capstone of their career. Francine Colaneri, the book industry’s 2008 Publishing Executive Hall of Fame inductee, is just that lucky. As vice president of manufacturing and supply chain at global children’s education and media company Scholastic Inc. (New York), she was instrumental in coordinating the manufacture and distribution of all seven books in the “Harry Potter” series published in the United States. “We

Steve Gillis and Dan Wickett are proving that the independent press is alive and well. In 2006, the co-publishers—Gillis, an author who made good in the stock market, and Wickett, a blogger who founded the Emerging Writers Network (EmergingWriters.typepad.com)—founded Dzanc Books with the goal to champion great writing. Now, with two years of business under their belts, the nonprofit press continues to garner attention for its crusade to help put good books into readers’ hands. • What are the biggest challenges facing smaller, independent publishing houses? Steve Gillis: Right at the top of the list is being well-financed. There’s a lot

With the rising costs of fuel and raw materials, it has become essential for most publishers to find ways to save money in book production and manufacturing—a task that can be quite challenging without sacrificing too much in terms of quality. However, with changing circumstances have come new strategies, some of which are riffs on past ideas, while others would have seemed unthinkable just a few years ago. “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,

Missed Part I of This Series? You can find Part I of this two-part series here. Taking the time to step back and evaluate your company’s publishing software can be challenging enough in the midst of the daily grind, but once you become aware that real problems exist, the bigger challenge can be figuring out how to successfully address them. Part I of this article explored “the decision phase”—or, how to recognize the need for a new system and the triggers that alert you to that situation. In this second installment, you will learn ways to analyze, select and determine the success factors

Chris Anderson’s ironic farewell to the retail bookshelf is a harbinger of how direct distribution in the supply chain is bypassing the traditional foundations of bookselling—as well as library patronage­—and is also flowing into nonprint formats. But while that transformation is nibbling around the edges of distribution, the fact remains that the book publishing industry’s supply chain model has as its primary target a physical book on a physical bookshelf. In this special two-part series, I want to discuss how digital data management drives workflow through the operations, acquisitions, development, production and distribution supply chain; in particular, how use of the Online Information Exchange

Publishers looking to cut costs and production time face a wealth of challenges, not the least of which is shaking off old conceptions. Putting the focus on content, rather than on books as manufactured objects, can paradoxically help to uncover new ways to speed up the workflow (or, more accurately, customize the workflow to meet the needs of individual projects), and do so in as cost-effective a manner as possible. Common themes among those who shared with Book Business their cost- and time-saving production tips are planning and adaptability, which depend on effective communication. Despite all the technological advances of recent years (and

When the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) hosted its annual Publishing University conference in Chicago in early November, publishers, printers and vendors who attended the “Offshoring” session were provided with tips, advice and a few fair warnings about partnering with offshore manufacturers. Jennifer Butenschoen, director of production at Harvest House Publishers, which publishes Bibles, self-help titles and gift books, presented a 90-minute crash course on the topic, during which she offered tips that Book Business readers should find useful in evaluating their own offshore manufacturing strategy. More than 100 million Harvest House books have been sold worldwide since the company’s conception in 1974. Now

Book-production management is, in many respects, an act of faith. For some, faith in the universality of Murphy’s Law—if something can go wrong, it will. Or, faith that virtue is its own reward—if you do everything right, things will always come out right. Old hands come to realize that “trust but verify” is probably the most prudent maxim to apply in managing workflow. Without systems in place and proven procedures, we’d have to reinvent the wheel every time. But without an occasional revisit to the last batch of XBIT transactions or Job Definition Format (JDF) specifications sent through, that error in the PMS color