The UK's favourite print show - MacMate

BOOKS
Who publishes and who prints?
PRINTONDEMAND-WORLDWIDE is one of
the new breed of book printers that is
blurring the lines between what a
printersdoes and what a publisher does.
As a printer it is entirely digital,
earning an award from Océ for innovation
in Digital Book Printing. Last year the
Peterborough company installed its first
VarioPrint 6250. It has added a second
and a VP 6350 as part of a drive to
automate production as much as possible.
Touch points have been cut from 16 to
four in the last 18 months.
The company actively seeks to print for
self published authors, offering a series of
modules to help get words in to print and
sponsoring the Authors’ Lounge at the
London Book Fair.
But it is not all about printing. The
company arranges conversion of text to
THE SWITCH TO PRINT ON DEMAND and towards digital
printing has caught many of the traditional finishing equipment
suppliers off balance. These are now scrambling to adapt to the
new conditions in book production, but in the meantime a new
flush of companies has been behind highly innovative
technology that is starting to meet the requirements of mirco
print production.
AT THE LARGE END, MAGNUM is typical of this new breed. It
developed a gathering and book block line for high speed web
printing. Its initial design will cope with web widths well beyond
presses that exist on the market. It has been highly successful
where inkjet webs have been installed around the world.
Muller Martini is the leader among the traditional equipment
suppliers, having been early to market with Sigmaline. This is
18 May 2011 www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk
Andy Cook of Printondemand-Worldwide says:
“A few years ago most printers were print on
demand. Now customers want multiple
formats and distribution and retail services.”
ebook formats, it has partners across the
world, it handles distribution and
fulfillment and naturally offers a print on
demand service through its BookVault.
Andy Cork, managing director, says: “A
few years ago most printers were print on
demand. Now what customers want is
multiple formats and the distribution and
the retail services.
“At the Book Fair we decided to
support new authors because the big
publishers are not interested in them and
will not talk to them. It has been a
roaring success for us. For most
publishers the Book Fair is a showcase
event, for printers it’s about new business
and for us it’s about lead generation. It’s
possible that one or two of the authors
that have come here may go on to have
huge success and will remember us.”
The end of the line
Muller Martini Sigmaline takes control of the digital press.
now a complete production system able to produce book blocks,
perfect bound books and magazines and to control the digital
press it operates in line with. This is essential as any mistakes
during binding will require a reprint that the finishing section
can trigger.
KOLBUS HAS NOW ANNOUNCED its KM200 as its first
response to finishing digitally printed books, coping with
different pagination titles in sequence provided all retain the
same format. It is intended for printers producing higher total
volumes of books, though made up of short individual runs.
At the bottom end come the hand operated units from
fastbind or Unibind aimed at the photobook creator and then the
single or four clamp binders from Horizon, CP Bourg, Duplo,
Watkiss and others that offer short run operation but with a
relatively manual operation.
THE SCRAMBLE LIES BETWEEN these two poles. German, British
and Italian companies in particular are devising automatically
adjustable three knife trimmers, case making and casing line
machines, end paper gluers and all the other components needed
for a fully automatic adjustable digital book production line.
Elements are in operation but as yet the industry has not settled on
a favourite. Steve Giddins, managing director of Perfect Bindery
Solutions in Oxford, sells a wide range of such devices, no less than
three three-knife trimmers for example. Digital on demand book
printing is where his company specialises. “I don’t want to compete
with Kolbus or Muller Martini,” he says. “There is a big growth in
digital book production and we are being pushed more and more
into being able to cope with one-off book production, below ten
copies now rather than short runs below 200 copies which was
standard only a few years ago.”