As publishing changes, print still has an important role to play.
Don’t listen to the naysayers. Print isn’t dead. And it hasn’t been replaced by digital content, like eBooks or audiobooks, either.
According to Pew Research Center, approximately 65 percent of American adults read a printed book within the last year. While ebooks’ percentage of the total market peaked in 2013, according to NPD BookScan and PubTrack Digital in 2016 the trade books industry was only 21% e-books, down from 24% in 2015.
Yes, digital technology is disrupting many industries, and yes, traditional approaches to print production – especially in the book category – are critical for key players to survive and thrive. However, we continue to see that the relevance and role of traditional print largely depends on the purpose of the content and the needs of the audience. In certain verticals – for example religious books, graphic novels and adult coloring books – printed content is as popular as ever.
The truth is that print offers many unique benefits that consumers still want. People have been shown to read print more quickly, retain more information, and experience less fatigue compared to digital mediums. Print also provides publishers with ways to produce the customized content customers want, as efficiently and cost effectively as possible. In many instances, publishers are looking for new ways to leverage print and digital mediums together, to provide an even richer reading experience.
According to InfoTrends, by 2018 nearly 40 billion book pages will move from traditional offset technology to on-demand printing. As the publishing industry evolves to meet new demands for customization, on-demand book publishing is the way forward. With growing consumer demand for customized content in books, magazines and educational course material, on-demand printing allows publishers to produce smaller runs – quickly and in color – with infinitely more options for personalization.
Here’s why:
Need for Speed
In the ever-shifting and competitive publishing landscape, being able to identify and move quickly on trends is absolutely crucial to a company’s success.
Advancements in inkjet, a style of computer printing that recreates digital images, have accelerated the printing process to provide publishers with a competitive edge.
With inkjet, publishers can turn jobs around at faster speeds and fulfill their supply chain as needed, making it possible to compete with the flexibility of traditional offset devices without sacrificing quality.
Less is More
In the past, publishers would have to find print partners to store thousands of book copies in a warehouse and hope that they met their sales targets. Now, they have the option of using inkjet to meet their distribution channel requirements, and are able to reduce storage costs by warehousing their books in a digital format instead – saving more by ordering less.
Publishers can also reduce waste in their supply chains while improving quality control. Canon’s Océ varioPRINT i300 and ColorStream presses offer unique logistical benefits, including the ability to print on the ramp up or ramp down, and help publishers to cost-effectively vary color elements in a way that isn’t possible with toner.
Turn Down the Volume
Traditionally, publishers were tasked with the challenge of accurately forecasting the quantity of books required to meet their sales targets while minimizing the costs of overruns. But inkjet printing, in addition to speed, gives publishers the option of printing only what they need, right when they need it.
When publishers can wait until orders comes in before they print and ship, they are no longer required to print huge volumes to meet their sales goals.
Blazing the Trail for Publishers
As the publishing industry continues to evolve, companies must find ways to not only meet the consumer demand for high-quality customized content, but do so as quickly and efficiently as possible. Moving forward, it is clear that print will offer a strong advantage to those who wish to stay competitive.
As illustrated earlier, there are good reasons for why the average reader has trended back to printed books, from the physical sensation of flipping the page to eliminating the noise of the endless apps that can distract us on tablets and e-readers. The better print companies are able to meet these challenges, the better positioned they are to connect to today’s avid reader and put them ahead of the competition.