Book Printing Blog

Call 2013 the year of the self-published book, as hundreds of thousands marched to the drummer of their own words on their own terms — and the business world scrambled to catch up and capitalize on the trend.

2013 was a big year for self-publishers. On the heels of 50 Shades of Grey author, E.L. James, who initially self-published her trilogy, many other self-publishing authors have similar dreams of stardom.

According to the Star, self-publishing titles this year alone are in the hundreds of thousands. Compare that to the 20 to 30,000 books being published by traditional publishers a year. It far outstrips that.

With new technology and the addition of eBooks, self-publishing is becoming more and more popular.

Georgie Binks was feeling pretty excited about her first foray into book self-publishing. Then 500 of her books arrived in 23 boxes. She sold them within two months and thanks to short run book printing, ordered 250 more.

One publishing company says there are at least 250,000 titles from self-published authors on their company's site. A year ago, it would have been a quarter of that.

There have been past success stories of self-publishing, but they were rare. With new technology/software self-publishing has never been easier.

Kindle has even sold more than one million copies each of 14 self-published titles this year.

These times will be known as “the glory days of self-publishing.” There’s no financial barrier to publishing a book anymore.

For information on self-publishing, contact The Country Press.

Excerpts - The Star

Short run book printing, while it will never replace traditional offset printing, certainly has it’s place with authors and publishers today. Offset printing will always be the option of choice for bulk book printing, but short run books have many benefits.

Advantages and Benefits of short run printing:

Save on printing cost

Short run printing is less expensive for a few reasons. There is no creating of plates and there are no films, so money is saved there. With short run printing, the files go from computer to the printing machine.

Only print the number of books you need

Short run printing allows you to order only the number of books you need, which makes the overall price less than bulk printing. While bulk books are less expensive per book, short run book printing lets your print fewer books, so the overall prices is far less. This also means that you will only have the amount of books you need, no waste, no need for extra storage space.

Faster turnaround

Short run books are printed faster than traditionally printed books. This saves time for delivery. This way there is less lead time from when you place your order and the time it takes for you to be able to fulfill your own customers’ orders.

More book publishing options

Book publishers and authors benefits the most from short run book printing. On a limited budget, self-published or new authors can print professional books on a limited budget. Publishers no longer need to store large amounts of back copies, books can be printed when they are needed.

For more information on short run book printing, contact the Country Press.

Today's blog post is a simple and sincere note of thanks for allowing our business to be part of your lives.  It is our sincere wish that throughout this Holiday season, that you are surrounded by warmth, family, and friendship.  May you and all you hold dear return from the Holiday season safe, rewarded, and rested.  Sincere best regards to you all. 

Publishers and authors are still being affected by the economy. As a result, book printing estimates need to be better than ever. How many copies do you need? There is a solution to this constant question. Short Run Book Printing.

Short run book printing is a new, and basically risk free solution to printing the ‘right’ number of books.  Short run book printing allows authors and publishers to print a limited number of books; print only what is needed, from 11-5000.

You still need to consider multiple factors when deciding on the quantity of books to have printed, but with short run books you have much more flexibility. If you print too few, it is easy to print more.

One of the biggest advantages of short run printing, of course, is a smaller book printing cost when you are having fewer books printed. It also allows you the opportunity to gauge the response of the readers before ordering too many books. Therefore, less money is at stake.

Short run printing lets you control your budget and lets you edit the books after printing if you find any missed errors. Additionally, short run printing takes less time because you are printing fewer books. For more information on short run printing, contact The Country Press.

The publishing industry is seeing a dramatic increase in self-published authors.  As a result, more people who have had the dream of writing and publishing books are thinking of self-publishing. It is one thing to write a book, but quite another to sell it. Many potential self-published authors do not know how to market their book once it is written.

Short run books printers specializes in book design and book printing for self-published books. Short run printing is a service provided to authors and publishing companies who want to print a smaller number of books. Short run books can be used for promotional purposes, as giveaways, for book-fairs and as advance copies.

With short run printing, you can easily turn your masterpiece into a professional quality book. Most new or self-published authors don’t have a large budget for publishing and book printing. This is where short run printing comes into play. Rather than having a large cash outlay upfront for book printing, you can print what you need or what you can afford instead, anywhere from 11-5000 books.

If you need a small quantity of books to fill your distribution channel, and for marketing and promotion, The Country Press is a short run book printer who pays careful attention to detail.  For advance reader copies, also known as bound galleys, short run book printing is the best option.

Short run printing is a full range and cost effective service for authors, contact The Country Press, Inc.

In addition to short-run printing, the print industry has taken other significant strides to make traditional books more environmentally-friendly. Another way the book printing industry has gone green is making a shift from offset printing to digital printing. First, there is less waste. Digital printing requires less set-up materials, eliminating the volume of paper that is used to set up proofs for offset printing. Second, digital printing utilizes toners, which are chemical free and are not considered hazardous or pollutant.   Whenever a reader is enjoying a traditional book, hot off of a ‘digital press’, they can have peace of mind that the book they are reading has been printed with the environment in mind.

Some book printing companies are taking the initiative to counteract the impact of the printing industry by planting thousands of trees every year through partnerships with organizations like Trees for the Future.  Printing on 100% recycled paper is expensive, so printing companies have incorporated a combination approach of using recycled paper for a portion of their projects, and donating to organizations that support tree planting.

The next time you discover an author or genre that is not available in eBook format, rest assured that the book printing company has probably embraced environmental initiatives. It’s nice to see the book printing industry respond to the demand of mindfulness of the environment, as there will always be something classic and nostalgic about the printed word.

For more information on digital printing for books, contact The Country Press.

Greener Ideal

Hello Friends of Country Press Printing

Well Thanksgiving is two days out and we all should be turning our thoughts to blessings, family, and turkey!  Keyword..."should".  We know most of you all too well are working doubly hard to finish your short run books or other self publishing works in advance of the Holiday season. As always, your friends at The Country Press will be there to help you, well that is, any day but Thursday! 

It is our sincere wish that this Thanksgiving blog post finds you all comfortably warm and surrounded by family.  To all of our loyal customers reading this, we simply pass along our most sincere best wishes and thanks for partnering with us for yet another year.  We work hard to earn your continued trust and we want you to know that we do not take your trust for granted.  Happy Thanksgiving to you, your family, and to all you hold dear. 

One of the first challenges of self-publishing is learning the jargon. Authors who manage their own marketing, distribution, and printing will soon find that there are far more concepts and acronyms they must learn about than if they were working with a traditional publisher.

For self publishers just trying to make sense of the many acronyms involved in self-publishing, here is a basic list of terms any self-publisher should know:

ASIN (Amazon standard identification number) — The unique 10-character block assigned by Amazon to each product on Amazon.com. Books with 10-digit ISBNs have an identical ASIN.

DRM (digital rights management) — Technologies or programs used by sellers of digital content, including e-books or audiobooks, to limit its use or prevent copyright infringement. This includes the number of times a product can be downloaded for a single purchase, the number of devices on which it can be accessed, and whether the content can be duplicated or modified.

EPUB (electronic publication) — An open and free e-book format proposed by the International Digital Publishing Forum that allows for the simple re-flow of content for whichever device the reader is using at the time. Files carry the “.epub” file extension.

FTP (file transfer protocol) — Protocol that allows users to copy files from their local system to a network. Authors can transfer using FTP client software such as Fetch or SmartFTP, or cloud-based programs such as YouSendIt.

HTML 5 (hypertext markup language 5) — The latest revision of the markup language used to create web pages and other information viewed on a web browser. This revision offers new features such as embedding graphics, audio, video, and interactive documents.

ISBN (international standard book number) — The unique identifier barcode given to each book/format combination. It can be either 10 characters or (for books published in 2007 or later) 13 characters. The number is provided by the ISBN agency of each author’s home country.

ONIX (online information exchange) — The international standard for capturing bibliographic information — including title, author, and publication details — for books. Retailers, distributors, wholesalers, and publishers use it to communicate information about titles.

PDF (portable document format) — A file format that allows for documents to be viewed and printed the same way, regardless of the application or device used. It is often used for e-books and for transferring files to be printed to create hard copies.

POD (print on demand) — A printing technology in which physical copies of books are not produced until an order is received. This reduces the need for inventories of books to be kept on hand and a lower overhead cost to self-published authors.

For more information on self-publishing, contact The Country Press.

Publishers Weekly

One of the main strikes against traditional book printing is that books have traditionally been over-printed. In other words, more copies of a book are typically printed than will ever be purchased by consumers, meaning a lot of paper gets wasted. This model for manufacturing books is wasteful and inefficient.

Responsible book printing companies have started offering short-run book printing services. Rather than forcing publishers to purchase huge orders so they can keep their unit price as low as possible, some printers are offering the ability to print only what’s needed, when it’s needed. With short-run printing, authors and publishers print off books when they are needed, thereby reducing the waste of unused materials. This technique can lead to a huge reduction in the impact book printing has on the environment. Some short run book printers also help authors and the publishing community transfer files into eBook format, giving everyone a chance at publishing an eBook along with their printed work.

For more information on short run printing, contact The Country Press.

Greener Ideal

There have been great advances in short-run digital printing and print-on-demand  technologies over the last decade. The manufacturers of high-volume digital presses have made huge improvements in print quality, formats, speed, and workflow. Short run printing solutions have can support both monochrome and color book printing and have the ability to customize and personalize—all with the speed and quality required by publishers and customers. These developments have changed how publishers assess the life cycle of a book, and they come at a good time. Gone are the days when one large offset print run can cover demand for a book over its entire life.

In the past, digital printing was only used “for extending the life of a title in the long tail, now titles are candidates for digital print at almost every stage. Titles are often set up for digital at the same time as the initial print run, so if a bookstore’s initial stocking order is short, additional copies can be produced quickly to meet demand. Because the content setup and transaction costs for digital book printing are very low, print costs at every stage of a book’s life cycle are economical. And keeping books in print longer is an extra benefit in the digital age: E-book sales are actually driving sales for printed books in the midlist, especially in the nonfiction categories.

Digital printing has matured to become a regular part of the production mix.

In the case of short run printing individual orders might be for 20 or more copies and are typically for inventory replenishment. When a customer orders several titles from a publisher or distributor, but sales forecasts for some of the titles are unavailable, short run book printing can reduce the risks of overstocking. Turnaround times on these orders are typically five to 10 days.

In the final stages of a book’s life cycle, when sales are infrequent and most orders are for single copies, a publisher can place the title on a print-to-order platform. Large libraries of out-of-print and otherwise hard-to-find titles have been aggregated and made available for sale online, creating new opportunities from older titles as well. And the inventories for these titles are entirely virtual, using print-to-order technologies. With the advances in both color toner and ink-jet printing, titles can be produced whose quality is comparable to that of the original editions, which were made using offset printing. In this case, the new printing systems provide a new lifecycle, when before there wasn’t one at all.

A key reason digital printing is now in the manufacturing mix is that current digital printing platforms have greatly flattened the cost curve across order quantities, and publishers that consider the total cost of ownership are rapidly taking advantage of these technologies. A new paradigm is emerging in which, rather than relying on large print runs, publishers order fewer copies of each title and then replenish their inventory more frequently, without increasing their expenses, thereby reducing inventory risks and conserving cash. And because of automated workflows, smaller publishers and distributors can take full advantage of digital printing. With the ability to economically produce very small book runs to address niche markets, customize content, and meet demand at all stages of a title’s lifecycle, publishers have more tools than ever before to address the needs of their customers in the new book-buying paradigms.

For more information on short run book printing or print-on-demand services, contact The Country Press.

Publishers Weekly