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Print-on-Demand: Is it working? Lightning Print and Chapbooks.com think so...
Yes, print-on-demand is working very well, thank you, according to Lightning Print, the book production arm of Ingram Industries, Inc. While announcing the appointment of new company president & CEO Ed Marino, Chairman Youngsuk Chi noted that Lightning Pr
Lightning Print milestones:- It's digital library has reached more than 6,000 actively-ordered titles
- They surpassed the half-million mark of print-on-demand books shipped
- An additional press has been installed and a third shift has been added at the LaVergne, TN production facility, and the presses are now running 24 hours a day.
- Over 400 publishers are now participating in the Lightning Print program.
"Today, in a typical week we are receiving orders from booksellers, libraries, and publishers for more than 12,000 books and over a third of our titles," Marino said. "In the fourth quarter of 1999, more that 4,000 bookstores and libraries have placed such orders with Lightning Print. Reaching these significant milestones is a solid indication of the industry's acceptance of print- on-demand books. It's a 'win' all around for authors, publishers, retailers, and consumers alike. It works!"
One of the more interesting applications of on-demand printing technology we've run across is Chapbooks.com, a year-and-a-half old company in Boston. Chapbooks.com specializes in "classroom and community publishing," printing short runs of paperbacks for the education market, and with a minimum order of 30 copies, a school class can publish a book of their writing for only $150.
For example, The Whitney Project, a division of the Southwest Comprehensive AIDS-Care, Research and Education (C.A.R.E) Center based in Santa Fe, published their first chapbook entitled If There is a Place in honor of Whitney Williams, a young girl who died of AIDS in 1997. The Whitney Project has used their book as a method for getting the community and local organizations involved in their program.
Chapbooks.com president Matthew Josefowicz would like to turn everyone into an independent publisher, saying that his company is "democratizing" private publishing, which previously was reserved for the wealthy who could afford to spend $5,000 on a run of hardcover books.
"With Internet and on-demand printing technology, everyone can, and probably should be a publisher," said Josefowicz. "Everybody has a story to tell, and the Internet has caused an explosion of people telling their stories on the Web. Part of our business is to encourage people to celebrate, preserve, and share their stories by publishing their own books."
Print-on-demand technology is what makes the concept feasible, by allowing short print runs that are delivered quickly and affordably. "Utilizing this print-on-demand technology is really exciting," said Josefowicz. "Manuscripts arrive electronically, pre-press is electronic, and it goes to the printer electronically. Nothing physical moves until the books are shipped."
The twenty-seven year old entrepreneur brought his experience as an e-commerce analyst to his parents' traditional printing business, and the new concept blossomed. They currently concentrate their marketing efforts on educators, but are about to open it up to the general public. Their Website includes a newsletter, reviews of selected books they've produced, and a section for teacher-publishers to share ideas and strategies.