Digital printing can have the immediacy of the online age
HP digitally printed book storeHP took the opportunity to present its new digital printing solutions and business models for publishing at the recent Frankfurt Book Fair.
As we all know the publishing market is undergoing dramatic changes, and HP believes its range of solutions is ideal for the next big thing in publishing - Print.
"Digital printing presents exciting opportunities for publishers to meet the demands of the modern market and produce books of lasting value that have the immediacy of the online age," said Paul Randall, market manager, Direct Marketing, Transactional and Publishing Segment, EMEA, HP. "HP Indigo and HP Color Inkjet Web Presses deliver the quality standards of traditional book publishing while offering a business model for today's commercial environment."
As usual the HP stand featured the HP Digitally Printed Bookstore filled with a comprehensive range of books, printed on HP Indigo and HP Color Inkjet Web Presses. The store is a novel way in which HP can demonstrate the versatility and quality of digital book production with examples including art books, fiction, children's books, travel books and versioned and personalised books.
With the ability to print on coated, uncoated, gloss and recycled stocks, HP maintains its digital presses are suited to most categories of book production and can be used in conjunction with finishing equipment for case and perfect bound books.
At present, there are some 250 specialist book printers using HP digital presses in 50 countries across six continents. Representatives from some of these international book printers had an area on the stand where they were available to talk about the business benefits and advantages of digital book production, networking and the ability of publishers to "Think Global and Print Local."
It’s estimated that the market for digitally printed books will grow to 151 billion pages by 2014, and a growing number of specialist digital book printers, publishers are well positioned to take advantage of the digital business model.
The main threat of course comes from online information. HP maintains that publishers can respond quickly to market demands and editorial changes and updates by using its digital printing solutions and compete against the web.
It highlighted three main benefits that publishers can enjoy by digitally printing their books:
- Reduced risk: By only printing what they need, lead times can be shortened and the risk of having to warehouse books is greatly reduced. With an average of 30 per cent of printed books returned to publishers and eventually pulped, this represents a great potential saving.
- Revenue streams from backlists: About 90 per cent of a publisher's list is out of print. With digital printing, it is possible to bring books on the backlists into production again quickly and cost-effectively.
- Print on-demand: With easily controlled run-lengths, it is possible to release only enough books onto the market to meet demand, but not so many that they will require warehousing. Reprints are easy and fast, and present a far lower risk than a conventional print requiring more copies.
Most importantly, HP emphasised that all of the above can be achieved without compromising print quality.
The HP digital press range.
The HP Indigo 5600 and 7600 Digital Presses and the B2 (75cm/29in) format HP Indigo 10000 Digital Press offer sheet-fed options to commercial printers that want to add high-quality, short-to-medium run books to their product offering. The B2 format of the HP Indigo 10000 Digital Press enables the production of lay-flat books, coffee table books and large dust-jackets.
For web production of colour books, book covers and other publications, the new HP Indigo W7250 Digital Press, with a 340mm (13.4in) web width, is designed to print up to 10 million A4/letter-size pages per month.
New presses for longer runs of books and other mono or colour publications in the HP Inkjet High-speed Production Solutions range include the HP T360 Color Inkjet Web Press (web width 762mm/30in) and the HP T410 Color Inkjet Web Press (web width 1066mm/42in). For shorter runs, the HP T230 Color Inkjet Web Press (web width 558mm/22in) is a full-specification entry-level press for the publishing markets.
More information is available at www.youtube.com/hpgraphicarts
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