E-book’– a word sure to strike fear into the hearts of even the most confident and resourceful of book printers. And in some ways their anxiety is not entirely misplaced. The e-book has afterall, fuelled by Amazon’s expensive and expansive drive to achieve market dominance with its Kindle device, seen phenomenal growth. And so one could be forgiven for imagining that sales of actual, physical books are in some sort of freefall as a result.
But this is far from the case. One only has to look at the publishing sensation of the past year – EL James’ Fifty Shades trilogy. The first book, Fifty Shades of Grey, started off as a piece of online fan fiction in e-book form, but then bucked the digital-is-king trend to became a major bestseller as a physical book. In the process it kick-started something of a boom in erotic publishing from a host of publishers, as well as tongue-in-cheek spin-offs such as the, ahem, stocking filler Fifty Sheds of Grey which reportedly sold more than 40,000 copies in the run-up to Christmas.
And it’s not only erotic fiction that people are still choosing in their droves to read in print. Set against the rocketing sales of e-books, the physical book is showing an "underlying resilience", according to Nielsen BookScan, whose analysis for total sales of physical books in 2012 shows volume sales down 3.4% in 2012, arresting the steeper decline of 2011 when the equivalent figure was 7.2%.
With a backdrop of challenging economic conditions and so much malaise in the retail sector, the figures demonstrate a "continuing public appetite for the written word," says Nielsen commercial director Ann Betts.
This is certainly the feeling of two book experts PrintWeek caught up with, who report that niches are a particularly nice place to be.
Titan Publishing Group
London-based independent publisher Titan has two main divisions; books and magazines. In its books wing, the group has focused on producing titles for specialist areas, including film, TV and game tie-ins, graphic novels, and illustrated books. It also publishes fiction – again in specialist areas – and has a major launch slated for later this year when the new Stephen King novel will be published under Titan’s Hard Case Crime imprint, which revives the style of ‘pulp’ paperbacks from the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s.
Print and paper buyer Kevin Wooff explains his varied requirements:
"There isn’t a type of book that Titan doesn’t do. A- and B-format paperbacks are produced in the UK or US, while high-end illustrated books are generally made in the Far East. We print all over the world.
We have some very time-sensitive releases and there will be a hot selling period in the first few weeks when a new movie or game is released. Generally, our policy is that each book has its own rules, I work through the P&L with our editors and it’s a question of how that P&L works and how the schedule works.
Titan has learned quickly that, in the context of e-books, physical books have a higher intrinsic value. We produce a lot of limited editions. For example, for Sucker Punch we printed 2,000 limited edition copies that were originally priced from $50 (£33). You wouldn’t pay less than $400 for a copy on eBay now.
We’ve done other limited editions with artists and they will typically have a lot of additional content, such as art prints, DVDs, tipped-in signature sheets – all manner of value-added extras. And sometimes we will have more than one limited edition so we can add further value. For Dead Space, we had four separate limited editions including a clamshell and a traycase version.
Nobody wants to buy a damaged book, and especially not with books like ours that are coveted and collectable. In the US, Amazon is putting pressure on publishers to comply with a ‘no-fault’ supply chain and that’s forcing them to upgrade. So we’re now looking at extra packaging in the boxes and things like corner protectors.
Our creative teams are always looking for ideas. I wouldn’t say ‘you name it, we do it’, but it’s not far off. We use a host of special effects – all manner of finishes, including raised bands on the binding and burnt embossing for an aged look.
We don’t generally produce colour books in the UK, although I do have a colour paperback going through Butler Tanner & Dennis at the moment. And I have another long-run hardback book going through at the moment where Europe is proving more competitive than the Far East. An Italian book printer has installed a special press – 10-colour UV with inline finishing – that means they are offering better prices than China on certain types of book. That’s where technology can give printers an edge on added-value finishes.
No-one wants to hold stock these days, so print runs tend to be conservative, with fast reprints.
We’re in a different position to the big mass market publishers because we are in a specialist marketplace. Our volumes are growing and we’re doing six- and now seven-figure runs, and we’re bringing books back into print that have been out-of-print for 20 or 30 years.
I tend to only use digital printing for advance reader copies. I have trialled different stocks and different presses using digital. We want to keep our books looking the same, so what might work for print-on-demand is no good to us if the format and specification is completely different. There are a lot of conundrums in the marketplace, and one of them is digital against traditional. I’d like to see flat line pricing between the two.
The dream would be to have one portal where I could upload a title and then simultaneously print the same books worldwide. Or if, for example, I had 300 books of the same size, but with different paginations and I could just drop them into a workflow. One day someone will crack it, but they haven’t cracked it yet."
Hurtwood Press
Surrey-based Hurtwood Press brings 30 years of specialist project management and production skills to the fore when it comes to producing beautiful fine art and photographic books. The firm’s client list includes art galleries such as the Tate and Hayward, and artists including Gilbert and George, David Mach and Humphrey Ocean. The firm recently launched a new short-run Artisan Books service, billed as an affordable ‘gold standard’ in book production and featuring hand-made, cloth bound books produced "in the highest traditions of the craft".
Partner Francis Atterbury says that quality is everything:
"I do print overseas, but I am increasingly printing in this country. Our Artisan Books are entirely British made, and are printed and hand-bound in London. I also print some books in Germany, but I’m doing less and less offset these days and using digital printing more. I actually prefer digital.
The advent of B2 digital presses is a massive advance. Finally, I can sew digitally printed books, so it’s great.
The sort of projects I’m involved with are not about price. If it was just about price, someone will always do it cheaper. Typically we’re working with people who don’t make their money from selling books. For artists and photographers, books are a part of their marketing process.
We work on bespoke projects and we are producing unusually good books, and people recognise that.
Printing technology has changed but my requirements in terms of suppliers haven’t. I want to work with people I like, and who won’t let me down.
Our run lengths are actually going up, and we’re often involved with longer digital runs, such as the 2,000 limited edition copies we produced of a recent art book. That had hand-marbled cases and we actually exported 1,000 copies to Germany.
A major frustration is that I can’t get Garda Kiara paper here in the UK, it’s ridiculous. The only reason I print in Germany is because I can get Kiara there.
I think it would be lovely if binderies, printers and clients started to demand higher standards. Printers are really good at what they do and books are exceptionally well printed. But the paper grain is often wrong and the binding is terrible. Whereas in Germany or the Netherlands they bind with the correct grain direction as a matter of course. I can become a real grain direction bore.
We should be making the best colour books here in the UK. If we’re not competitive for mass manufacturing, at least the quality should be top end.
With some of the binding I see, the implication is that nobody’s going to want to open the book, read it or keep it for more than a year. It contributes to the de-skilling of the profession and, ultimately, to the transfer of jobs and work elsewhere.
E-books are not having a direct effect on our business. The opposite, in fact. E-anything is intrinsically of less value. I think we’re currently at a nadir and in the future, people will look back at this time and think ‘what went on there?’ There will be no records of this time; not in the way that, in the past, people kept things like photographs.
I think the photobook phenomenon will grow as people realise they are living in a time where there is a diminished record of life. Photobooks are not just the preserve of the rich. I see the whole thing growing. Ultimately, it’s increasing the market for people like us."
