Discussion

By Constantin Tudoran on Dec 10, 2013

Knowing who and what is Ricoh, I do tend to believe this study has distinct chances of being somewhat biased. From my experience, readers belong mainly to the older generations (people over 35) and they generally do not like reading on electronic machines. The very young and young generations (10 to 30) are not very interested in books, or reading in general. They even tend to skip required reading at school, in favor of book reports copied from the Internet. At any rate, investing in a roll fed digital (or any digital for that matter) is for the time being not a very good idea. As a matter of fact, investing in new equipment right now is like purchasing a computer at the begining of the 1980's. It would be obsolete in a year or even worse, the whole technology it's based upon would be entirely discontinued. We all agree that the printing plant of say... 50 years from now, will probably be a digital book production line that will print literally on demand single copies of books as per customer's request. However this is a thing of possibly, the very distant future. Mainly beacause publishers are also reluctant to expand into the digital books domain, since digital books can be very easily lend, borrowed, or given away, in original or in copy, which by all means is not easy to do with a printed book and can have most unwanted effects on their revenues. Also, as odd as it may seem, the persistence in time of electronic media, the substrate of the electronic book, is currently much below that of a printed book, measuring in years while a printed book will last decades if not centuries. It's most disturbing to find the (say) flash stick upon which you had a whole library of 500 volumes is no longer readable or most of the pages are garbled gibberish. People are generally not in favor of reading online (as in digital borrowing libraries). They would like to have something tangible in exchange for their money. In my opinion, we'll probably have a substantial amount of paper books being printed 30, maybe even 50 years from now. The largest adoption however in the range of digital seems to be for audio books. People seem to like to extensively use them, mainly in cars during driving from home to work and back. In this case though, we're talking mainly technical, job related of personal improvement audio books, not fiction or general literature.

By Cary Sherburne on Dec 11, 2013

If you read the entire report, and not just the headlines, I think you will see that it is not that biased. I am one of those "old people," way older than 35, sadly! I have more than 700 digital books in my Amazon library and read these books from my phone (Galaxy S4). Never thought I would be doing that, but the screen quality of these devices has improved tremendously. I would not depend on having some format on a flash drive. Rather, I depend on Amazon to make sure my file format does not become obsolete, understanding that that is still a risk.

That being said, I 100% do not agree with you on whether a book printer should investigate roll-fed inkjet. I have personally visited a number of book printers who have made this investment and are experiencing significant growth, both from the shorter runs that publishers are ordering and the growth in the self-publishing movement. It is the wave of the future. I also think Marco has a valid point in that commercial printers such as Frederic are making the most of the technology, augmenting book volume with other types of commercial printing applications.

People said the Xerox DocuTech would never fly in the 1990s and it turned into a $2 billion business for Xerox, basically obsoleting B&W offset. Marco makes a good point when he says that this transformation is different than what we have seen previously with digital printing, where a lot of the volume comes from new applications. In the case of book printing, the volume is straight offset transfer. Of course, it does allow "new applications" in the sense that it makes printing of smaller quantities for self-publishers affordable.

Time will tell who is right. But based on what I have personally seen and experienced, I respectfully think you are way off base in your comments.

By Constantin Tudoran on Dec 12, 2013

I am very sorry that you think so. I am also way over 35 (over 50 in fact) and have been managing book printing plants for over 2 decades now. One little thing though: not all markets are identical to the American market. And I'm not an American printer. You should be aware of the fact that there are many places on Earth were Xerox STILL only sells copiers (or not even). That the future belongs to the book printed as a single copy and sold as a gift or collector's item is obvious. It is only as to the distance to that future that our opinions diverge. Your opinion is that future is now. I do believe it's at least a couple of decades away. I'm not saying one should NOT investigate roll-fed inkjet. I'm just saying it's to soon to call. It's not obvious that the winner is inkjet. In fact, I don't think it is. The inkjet technology leaves a lot to be desired in affordability, sturdiness and ability to service. It requires a totally different set of skills for maintenance and repairs. So far, it's not for everyone. And in many countries, you should know, self-publishing is just a weird idea of eccentric authors.

By Cary Sherburne on Dec 12, 2013

Constantin, you are correct, in many ways this is a North America centric position. I do understand that it is quite different in other parts of the world. And the future will arrive at different times in different places. also, there is a great deal going on with high speed digital printing that will obviously change the landscape of what is offered today. I think that the times are exciting, though, and book printers, wherever they are in the world, should be keeping an eye on market and technology trends, making the decisions that are best for their businesses and their customers. They don't need to be on the bleeding edge, but they should try to be on the leading edge!