Lake Book

A new breakthrough in dust jacket material, introduced to the market earlier this month, could wind up saving publishers time and money by helping to bypass the need to add a protective laminate during production. Visual Systems Inc. (VSI), a Milwaukee-based book component manufacturer, introduced the innovative new plastic material to the market in early July. The company says the product--called BaseOneone that omits part of the production process resulting in approximately 20 percent savings for educational publishers. On the trade side of things, VSI says there is a 2 to 5 percent savings from eliminating the laminating step and the extra time and materials

Book manufacturers and publishers used to squeeze each other to cut costs at the other's expense. Now they are cutting costs together in partnerships of convenience. Welcome to 2004. It's like 2003, only the recession's grip has lessened. Production managers continue to shave a penny here, save a dollar there, while keeping up hope that the vaunted recovery will hit their employer's slice of the book publishing industry soon. Meanwhile, large retail and bookstore chains are returning books by the truckload, according to industry regulars. This dilutes revenues and increases costs for the publishers, leaving them with diminished cash flow and pinched