Many print applications were negatively impacted during the pandemic. However there were exceptions, particularly book printing. Although book sales suffered set-backs from closed shops, publishers putting off the release of new titles, supply chain issues and more, printed book volumes did grow by about 5% in Europe and the U.S. Crucially it underscores the preference for print by consumers.

It was not all smooth sailing. The pandemic shook up many established processes and led to publishers and printers re-evaluating their print production. Print strategy is still a major decision: long runs and long-distance shipping or local print (on demand) in short runs. Digital printing has made short run printing down to the issue of one possible. Inkjet especially made considerable inroads into book printing and became a major application area of continuous feed inkjet. Counting CF inkjet installations since 2010, with known end uses, about 30% of those installations went into some form of book or manual printing.

Quality Issues Have Been Overcome

The biggest change in inkjet for book printing in the last 3 years was that quality is not an issue anymore. In the early days, inkjet print was sold on price and occasionally on tight turnaround requirements. With the latest generating of devices there is almost no difference between offset and inkjet. Even the same substrates are possible. That is not to say that book printers will always need the highest quality devices, there is still a lot of simple mono business out. Still inkjet is now able to match the quality level required, taking the print technology out of the decision making process.

The improvements are not only down to the latest generation device launches, also existing products get constant upgrades that increase quality.

The Supply Chain Under Scrutiny

Given a comparable quality, other factors do to tip the balance between offset and inkjet. During the pandemic a lot of pressure on the supply chain ensued. Book publishing is a global business with many books printed in low cost countries and shipped globally. The restrictions in the pandemic forced publishers to re-evaluate the supply chains and reconsider their reliance on too few production partners and too long shipping distances. While book exports from China into Europe and the U.S. already stagnated or had a slight decline in recent years, this trend is going to accelerate. In Europe book printers in the Eastern European countries are set to benefit – those are already ramping up their equipment and marketing. However local printers are likely to benefit as well, especially when publishers move even more towards a POD model.

Streamlining the workflow does not stop at onshoring or near-shoring of printing. A challenge for a wider range of printers is the back-office integration. As a printing company puts it: “all discussions today are about workflow. Price and quality are a given.” This includes portals in which publishers can all access all data, stock and production status information, allowing for the automation of ordering, shipping and invoicing processes.

Partial solutions exist already. Every press vendor does offer workflow solutions for book printing. For example, with  HP Site Flow the production print workflow can even be shared across non-HP printers. Still in many cases it is a bespoke IT-affair between a printer and a publisher, especially when commercial aspects beyond file transmission and job tracking are touched. This will get more complicated when publishers are trying to broaden their supplier base to safeguard supply chain security. Another challenge remains in quality assurance of consistent production across a number of potential print sites.

Publishers and printers are willing to go new ways, as the joint press installation of the CPI Group (Europe’s largest book printer) and publisher Wiley shows. The partnership was announced last year under which CPI operates a Canon ColorStream 6700 installed now at Wiley’s European Distribution Centre facility in Bognor Regis, UK. This allows for a close inventory management and shortest runs.

Online Book Sales Shaping Print

A significant effect of the pandemic was the increasing importance of online book sales. Although many online players benefitted, Amazon was the main beneficiary. A challenge was that for some time during the pandemic books were not on Amazon’s priority list and got bumped from delivery when capacity was tight. As Amazon tends to set the rules under which publishers need to provide books, publishers can feel pressured. Publishers are now eyeing for more direct sales and other online channels.

Online ordering is also changing the visibility of titles – especially back-list titles. While in a shop only a limited number of books are on display – naturally the ones currently in print– online sales portals can link to older titles from the same author or on the same topic, even if they are not stocked in printed form currently. This will put more pressure in serving the long tail and drive printing on demand.

Environmental Moving into Focus

Sustainability is slowly gaining traction, and everybody expects that topic to play a much bigger role in the future. There are a few drivers leading to more environmental considerations:

• Publisher tend to be more environmentally conscious companies
• Environmental legislation to curb emissions and make better use of resources
• Countering arguments on the perceived lower environmental impact of e-documents compared to paper

Whether it is by reaching certain targets (becoming carbon neutral by 20XX) or showing constant improvements in the environmental footprint, publishers will take bigger care in becoming more eco-friendly. Inkjet can help in making the whole process more environmentally friendly. The big advantage of inkjet is to be able to print much shorter runs, down to a single book, avoiding obsolescence and overruns. Distributed, local printing helps reducing the CO2 footprint as well. Other improvements in inkjet are more subtle. The advanced web cleaning of the new Canon ColorStream 8000 is helpful for using recycled papers, as they have more dust.

Inkjet Set to Gain

Many indicators point to a bigger use of inkjet and more POD printing.

Today there are no publishers left without a POD strategy. Too often however this is based on a narrow view, a purely print cost driven focus on short run print. The focus now moves to agility and flexibility, back-office automation and environmental considerations, that will expand the market for POD and inkjet.

Not too many new companies have joined the ranks of established book printers offering POD for books so far. Established relationships between publishers and printer remain important. Also, the know-how established book printers have in binding is not easy to replicate.

There are some strategies however on how printer selection can change. Print platforms are emerging for book printing as well. Print platforms can be an easy way to channel business and enable local printing - even if they do not have own print capacity.

Established book printers can gain on the other hand in improving the back-office integration to publishers. We heard of cases where a smooth integration is becoming more important than quality and price. Again, this will enable shorter runs and long-tail titles as overhead costs decline.

2020 was certainly an exception year, but some of the trends kicked off during that time will stay with us.