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BOOKS
Berforts: an exception to the rule
An ambitious printer has taken a struggling digital print business and
used it to step boldly into the world of books.
Book printing is proving attractive to an increasing
number of printers to judge by those installing small
single and four-clamp perfect binders. The attraction
is in handling short run titles to a plethora of micropublishers,
organisations and self published authors
at the bottom of an eco system that has global publishing brands
at its top. Easy to use software has made page creation and design
straightforward; the internet and a growing inclination towards
localism helps on the marketing side; while for print, these short
run publications provide fodder for digital presses.
It has also spurred development of automatic book creation
machines, the best known of which is the Expresso. It is
supposed to be the ultimate expression of this, a means of
pressing a button and having a vending machine disgorge a
printed and bound book a few minutes later. It has never caught
on in the way that its inventor Jacob Epstein still hopes that it
will. The number of titles available is limited, the problem of
locating them remains, and the quality is no match for
professional printing and binding. Printers are still needed.
At the industrial end of the scale, just as there are megapublishers,
there are international printers that are highly
invested in presses and bindery to meet the needs of printing
books by the thousands, tens of thousands or more. The CPI
group is the leader in production of mono books in Europe and
has been one of the most avid
supporters of HP’s inkjet web
press, installing a T300 at
Firmin Didot in France and
now with plans to install a
T400 and another T series
machine at Anthony Rowe in
the UK. However, while these
machines are catching the
attention, CPI has also bought
a KBA Commander to print
books in the sort of volumes
that are beyond the sweet
spot for the inkjet press.
In the UK, MPG Books has
confirmed it will install
Kodak’s Prosper 1000 mono
press for book printing while
St Ives Clays already has a
Versamark for book printing
alongside its Timsons in
Bungay and is considering
expansion of digital
production.
Elsewhere Océ has
achieved an almost clean
sweep of electrophotographic
book webs with presses at TJ
International, CPI Anthony
Rowe and Printondemand in
Peterborough.
An exception is Berforts, a
20 May 2011 www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk
relative newcomer to book printing following its acquisition of a
digital print operation in Stevenage. Prior to this deal Berforts
was a commercial printer in Hastings. This remains its litho plant
while investment in digital production has improved capacity to
print and bind books. The company took space at the London
Book Fair alongside Kodak which had supplied Berforts with a
Nexpress. The company is also a recent customer for Kolbus
buying a casemaker and casing in line.
“We are aiming at print runs from one to 1,000 books, below
the Mackays, Cox & Wyman or Clays, but alongside MPG, TJ
International and Anthony Rowe,” says managing director
Gerald White. He has faith that this sector of the market will be
resilient to the growth of ereaders and tablet computers. “The big
problems are coming for the printers of trade books because their
market is going to be decimated by ebooks easily,” he says. “And
there will be problems with high speed inkjet because one
machine has the potential to take out the production of three
companies.”
Berforts has also spread its work load. On the one hand are
highly specialised volumes of legal reference books, each coming
in at 2,500pp or so. On the other it uses the Nexpress to print
children’s books and variable data technology to print guides for
VW Campervan owners, for example. At the LBF the company
was launching BookSelect, a means for publishers to order short
volumes of titles at agreed
rates dependent on overall
volume. It is not a new
concept, MPG’s precursor in
Kings Lynn had tried a similar
approach and
Printondemand’s Book Vault
has a pricing system based on
volume and on a menu of
other services that can be
offered to new publishers and
authors.
For Berforts the decision is
very much about catching the
wave that is cutting average
production runs from 1,500
books currently, to around
400-500 inside ten years
according to White.
The company’s binding is
located in Stevenage where it
has Xerox and Nipson as well
as Kodak digital presses. Litho
press work is folded and
shipped to Stevenage for
binding. One of the
specialities is printing on
lightweight papers, needed
for the high pagination
reference books. It is now
looking at the potential for
personalised children’s books.