printweek.com

Distributed printing

Matt Whipp — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 10:10:00 GMT

"The network is the computer" is the mantra under which Sun Microsystems has conducted itself over many years. The thinking is that hooking up networked computing resources and delivering a slice of that power to wherever on the network it is needed is an extremely efficient method of getting more bangs for your buck out of your hardware. Sweating your assets, as they say.

Delete computer and replace with printer and you might have something similar to what News International is suggesting might be possible in a few years time for newspapers.

Printing at the point of distribution may turn out a savvy move, according to Ian McDonald, managing director of operations at News International, and you can see his point. If you're printing hundreds of thousands of copies centrally and then sending them out to small remote communities in, say, the north of Scotland, it would probably be cheaper to employ a local commercial print shop to produce the few thousand needed to serve that area.

McDonald says that digital presses are some way off being fit for such a purpose but that in time it could well mean the likes of News International installing digital presses in commercial printers on the condition that the newspapers are printed overnight, with the printer using the press for small commercial jobs at other times - in short a network of printers.

It appears the polar opposite of what is currently happening in the newspaper sector, with hundreds of millions of pounds spent on newspaper printing cathedrals, taking on commercial work to fill all that extra capacity.

But it's astute to consider the opportunities of the reverse, especially with advertising. It could mean a massive blow to regional newspapers. Ford for example, might welcome the opportunity to print dealer specific adverts local to where copies of nationals are being distributed - moreso perhaps in a national where they only need to deal with one person than many local gazettes.

Baskerville the movie

caroline Archer — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 13:15:00 GMT

I have been lucky enough to be invited to work with the Birmingham Institute of Art & Design (part of Birmingham City University) on the production of ‘Baskerville’ – an animated film about the life, work, technological impact, cultural achievements and world-wide influence of the city’s typographic genius. The film is a cinematic version of a Prints Past column - an exercise in how to compress a life-time of achievement into a 10 minute movie without losing the sense of the story and sill managing to captivate the audience. The project is testing my writing skills to their maximum, but I hope the end result will be pleasing. The film will be premiered at the Hello Digital Festival, Birmingham, 23-26 October 2008 and will be the start of a long-term Baskerville project for which we are looking for enthusiasts from the printing industry who would like contribute to their opinions on Baskerville, anecdotes of working with the face, samples of designs using the font. If you want to know more contact me at Print Week.

Fatality at St. Ives Peterborough

Tony Burke — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 09:18:00 GMT

Like many in the printing industry I was shocked to learn of the death of Unite member, Ian Ebbs, aged 43, a manitainance engineer at St. Ives' plant at Peterborough, who was fataly injured at work last week. As yet we do not know the details of the circumstances of Ian's death and obviously we cannot comment until our Health & Safety specialists have visited the plant and met with our FOCs and the company. Unite regional officers have been sent a brief update on the situation from Bud Hudspith. We hope to issue advice to members working on similar presses next week. Our condolences, prayers and support goes out to Ian's family at this most difficult time.

Roll On The Day Of Reckoning....

Tony Burke — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 09:12:00 GMT

Watching TV is difficult when you are on holiday! Last week in sunny Cyprus I could only snatch chances to watch the BBC world news or Sky News either in the morning or early evening to catch up with the unfolding global financial crisis as bank by bank went into freefall and had to be rescued. There have been countless pundits expressing their views on what it all means and where will it lead us – the best so far has been Paul Mason and Michael Crick on Newsnight notably last night. (Friday). Mason’s BBC blog is a mine of information and updated daily at present. Derek Simpson, joint GS of Unite, welcomed Gordon Brown’s intervention but warned that” "The union is demanding that this financial support is tied to clear commitments to secure vital jobs in the financial services sector. The Government finance must serve to make the industry more transparent and accountable." Derek went onto say it was not acceptable for the Government to continue to capitalise the rewards in the finance industry and said measures should be extended to include undertakings by the banks of no job losses, no repossessions of homes and no rewards for "failure". He added: "It is imperative that the financial measures announced today mark the turning point in the world of banking and finance. Workers in the financial services industry are not the culprits of the credit crunch and we are not prepared to allow them to become the victims." Dead right. I think Gordon Brown has done as much as possible to “steady the ship” but to little avail at present – and like many – I wonder when “the day of reckoning” will come (if at all!) for the people who got us here. I don’t think many people believe or are fooled either by the Cameron/Osbourne line of the “no big bonuses anymore” and “heads must roll” sound bites. Their mates in the City know that this is all bluster. Also Osbourne using the phrase ‘Casino Capitalism’ was interesting – it was a phrase used earlier this year in the Morning Star (and I think by myself in Print Week) when the debate was raging about Private Equity. Don’t recall him using the phrase back then or calling for an end to big bonuses! The big worry is the effect on jobs, on our members and their families. In manufacturing and in print and media there is no doubt that there will be an effect in investment and on companies seeking loans for new kit or to tide them over the current crisis. Pagination in magazines is already dropping as publishers cut back on adverts, direct mail and new launches. Some companies who have been in difficulty some time before the current crisis could possibly go under – it was sad for me to learn yesterday of the situation at a company I know well, Buckley & Blands in Stockport (now called TPS) – it has been there forever! Everyone seems to agree that much tighter regulation is essential and is going to happen – it can’t come quick enough for me. And yet the TV is still has pundits and City based Hooray Henry’s saying that the market cannot be regulated and what is needed is a “light touch”. Over the last few weeks we have all learned a lot about what has been going on and where a "light touch" has got us - short selling: toxic debt; self cert mortgages; buy to let mortgages: bets made on falling shares that have sunk decent companies, share swops and other get rich quick schemes which appear to be nothing but pyramid selling, run by people who have already costs thousands of working families their jobs through sheer greed and an unregulated market. Nye Bevan’s phrase of “organized spivery” springs to mind. Many of these schemes would not be out of place on BBC 3’s The Real Hustle! Roll on the day of reckoning in both the UK and the USA.

Turn about-face on that brave face

Steven Kiernan — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:41:00 GMT

You’ll never guess where I was last week. I bet you. Go on, name your price.

Drupa.

That’s not entirely true. For one, I was in Hamburg, not the fair Fair city of Düsseldorf. For two, Drupa is but a fading memory. Instead, I was sent to our trade journalist cousins at Druck&Medien magazine to complete a review issue of the Drupa Report Daily, the exhibition newsletter we produced at the Messe in June.

So, no, I wasn’t actually at Drupa. Probably lucky we didn’t bet.

When I cast my mind back to those 14 days last summer in Germany, they are rose-tinted days of yesteryear, a time when the global print market seemed to almost be a positive place, held aloft by dreams of automation, by colour managed flights of fantasy, by launches, investments, of green ventures, of partnerships, alliances, of expansions. It was a fortnight capped by a seemingly never-ending string of zeroes attached to the sales figures of show exhibitors.

How times have changed, eh.

The dire state of the market – both for printers and printing equipment manufacturers – really hit home for me last week when I was reading (recent) quotes in that Drupa Report Daily review issue. In it, exhibitors boast about record Drupa sales figures and glorious futures. I flick to printweek.com and the stories are of those same manufacturers sliding into the red. KBA’s reason? "A sizeable volume of contracts negotiated at Drupa" failing to go through.

You can’t really blame those press customers for defaulting. I hear Iceland’s bid for a €4 billion loan was rejected by both the US and EU – if a whole nation once famed for the strong balance sheet of its finance sector can’t even get a loan, then there can be little hope for a print firm.

So – surprise surprise – suppliers exaggerate the positive spin of their economic situation: it’s not like they’re going to admit the sky is falling.

But don’t printers do the same? Who actually tells their customers that below-cost prices are killing them, not to mention the industry? At the recent Stationer’s Debate on print management, someone urged printers to tell their customers just how much pain low prices were causing. To show a buyer your margins. To explain that quality print costs money and buyers should pay more for it.

Tell that to Wyndeham and Southernprint.

But as Jo Francis pointed out in her recent blog, even Polestar, which has been blamed before for forcing market prices down by selling print at a loss, faced the same exact problem, complaining of being undercut 30% on a magazine job. If only Jo’s (tongue-in-cheek) idea of an OPEC-style body for web offset printers could come to fruition. Australian box-making behemoths Visy and Amcor certainly thought it a good idea and through the mid-90s would hold secret meeting in backstreet Melbourne bars to fix prices for cartons. They were eventually busted and Visy CEO Richard Pratt was slammed with an AU$36m fine, the single biggest personal fine in Oz history. Up in this hemisphere, the courts have raged with multi-million pound fines for paper price cartels involving the likes of Arjowiggins, Stora Enso and Metsäliitto.

Most UK printers would struggle with the logistics of organising a secret price cartel (although no doubt they’d agree the Aussies had the right idea by meeting at the local pub). But perhaps there’s some happy medium between an illegal, anti-competitive cartel and an association to promote sustainable economics in print, some rose-tinted future, where printers are held aloft by dreams of fair prices and the flights of fantasy of reasonable cost structures.

Come and play the field in Birmingham

caroline Archer — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:19:00 GMT

I've recently got invovled with a typographic distraction and have been working on a project which aims to cover the atrium at Millennium Point, Birmingham, in a Field of Light - and it’s going to look magical! This is all part of the Hello Digitla festival that is running in Birmingham 23-26 October 2008. However, you don’t have to be in Birmingham to view the Field because we’re using a web-cam and you’ll be able to watch it 24 hours a day at www.fieldoflight.com. The best bit though, is the Field is fully interactive with music for added atmosphere, and it is you who can control it and it is you who can make it move in any way you want! It doesn’t matter who you are or where you live, anyone from anywhere in the world can be a part of our project and play the Field in Birmingham. So how does it work? First of all you need to register yourself with www.fieldoflight.com and then go to our sequencer page where you can create your own light sequence. Submit your designs and if enough members like what you have done your sequence will be played by the Field live in Birmingham and watched by people all over the world. It’s simple! So come on and play the field.

Dead and buried

caroline Archer — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:37:00 GMT

There are few places of printing pilgrimage in England, or anywhere else for that matter, however, amongst the famous interments in St Margaret’s, Westminster, is that of William Caxton, the first English printer. Although Caxton’s precise date of death is uncertain, estimates from the records of his burial in St Margaret’s show he died in about March 1492. Typo-holic visitors to London sometimes go to the churchyard of St Luke’s in Old Street, about a mile to the north of St Paul’s Cathedral, a public space with some tall plane trees and a single free-standing 18th-century tomb surrounded by iron railings. The tomb commemorates William Caslon I who started the Caslon Foundry in around 1720, which became the leading English type-foundry of the 18th century. Historically minded typographic visitors to Birmingham often make the trip to Warstone Lane catacombs - a decorously decaying disused burial ground in the city’s Jewellery Quarter - to pay respect to the genius of Baskerville, an 18th century type founder and printer.

Plate up

Matt Whipp — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:02:00 GMT

There's something reassuring about visiting manufacturing plants. I've spent so much of my professional life managing and presenting information that seeing something tangible being made makes a vital connection.

So walking into Fujifilm's Tilburg plate facility seeing that work was already underway on the near €100m PS10 plate line and third on the site, (due to come online toward the end of next year or start of 2010) puts a spring in one's step.

Tilburg is a good news story for European print. PS10 was originally to be built in China. But the sheer size of the European print industry caused Fujfilm to change that decision and make Tilburg the "largest offset plate production facility in the world," according Senior Supervisor Jack Schellekens.

The bosses in Tokyo have placed a lot of trust in Tilburg. For one thing Fujifilm Manufacturing Europe BV now has a European president - Peter Struik - something of a first in a world where many Japanese companies tend to ship in Japanese execs to head up their international divisions.

It also evidenced by the fact that PS10 will be producing Fujifilm's newest digital plates, both processless and chemistry-free, and more importantly, it is expected that a greater emphasis will be placed on R&D at the facility. The company is already working with a Polish university on research projects (it already employs a significant number of Polish staff). So while Tilburg will serve Europe, Africa, and potentially some areas beyond, it may also end up the source of entirely new plate products for global markets.

All this begs the questions why Europe, and specifically why Tilburg? To answer the first, while there may be fewer printers and less print volume, countering this trend is a greater use of short run work and colour. Plate volumes are up. For the second, Tilburg is situated on some of the purest water around, pumped up from 250m underground.

Wyndeham: what happens next?

Jo Francis — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:24:00 GMT

A final short post on Wyndeham after a momentous week. I'm pleased that Iceland's banking crisis hasn't resulted in immediate chaos at the group, or indeed at any of the many other UK companies that have been funded by Icelandic investors.

Paul Utting's "business as usual" statement is all very well, and of course he's hardly likely to say "yeah, we're all running around with our arms in the air here", but I do wonder how long the board of directors can carry on not knowing what their funding position is.

What happens next? The UK government has frozen the £4bn UK assets of Wyndeham owner Landsbanki, sparking something of a diplomatic row with Iceland. Treasury officials are in talks with their Icelandic counterparts now. Meanwhile, Barclays Capital has been instructed to sell a €660m portfolio of Landsbanki's leveraged loans. This will probably involve selling the portfolio as some sort of job lot to AN Other bank for 55p-60p in the pound. I guess in finance terms it's a bit like being in the house clearance business. You buy a load of someone else's junk on the basis that there will be one or two items of value that will yield a profit on the whole deal.

No "junk" pun or insult intended, but somewhere in the above is Wyndeham, so amidst the uncertainty one thing is for sure. A change of ownership is on the cards. Wyndeham's management could even be in a position to jettison a chunk of debt - hey, it worked for Polestar. What price an MBO, I wonder?

New website to campaign against recent ECJ Rulings

Tony Burke — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:31:00 GMT

A new website has been launched, assembled and supported by Unite which gives details of the recent ECJ rulings, news items, comment, a discussion forum all related to the ECJ rulings on Laval, Viking, Rüffert and Luxembourg. And you can sign the on-line petition. Should 1 million signatures be gathered, then the Petitions Committee of the European Parliament, will pass it on to the European Commission, so that proper action is taken. So, please send the link to your colleagues and encourage them to sign the petition or post the url on your networking, websites and blogsites! http://www.amicustheunion.org/lavalvikingruffert/default.aspx

Unite GPM Sector e-bulletin 27 now available

Tony Burke — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:20:00 GMT

Latest issue of the Unite the Union GPM Sector e-bulletin (No.27) is available at: http://newsweaver.co.uk/unite/index000303282.cfm?x=bdtnLhR,bbdnGgnH To recieve your copy each month click on the "subscribe" button and get added to the list.

Small businesses carrying the can for the big banking balls-up

Jo Francis — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 09:24:00 GMT

While Gordon Brown was explaining the Great £50bn Bank Bail Out yesterday, he stated "we will insist on bank credit lines being extended to small business on a normal basis". How exactly will the PM's insistence manifest itself, I wonder? The FSB has already warned of the potential devastating impact to the economy overall as small businesses are increasingly squeezed from all sides. In its recent snap survey of 6,000 companies, 40% had seen a rise in the cost of bank facilities such as loans and overdrafts.

Many companies have received abrupt notice from their banks of new, higher charges in the past two weeks, and increased overdraft rates are already kicking in. So Brown's insistence really needs to be backdated if it's to be in any way meaningful for firms up and down the country who are already labouring under the impact of increasing costs from every direction, and justly feel as if they're being kicked while they're down. Let's hope the co-ordinated interest rate cut has a positive effect. I wonder how many SME business owners are feeling more optimistic about their finances and their future today than they were yesterday?

One thing has become abundantly clear amid all the financial chaos, that old cliché "cash is king" has never been more true. In these febrile times opportunities abound for bold and entrepreneurial business owners with ready access to a cash stash, and some companies will be able to transform their future fortunes as a result.

In fact, if you had circa £100m stuffed under the mattress you'd be able to pick up a leading and well-invested full service UK print group for a snip. This morning St Ives' market capitalisation was £98.4m, not far off half its net asset value. At this rate Mike Taylor and David Mitchell will be able to launch a bid using their loose change.

A disappearing act to put Houdini to shame

Chloe Setter — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 09:11:00 GMT

When I first came across the idea of erasable paper, I admit it, I scoffed a little.

For a start, calling it erasable paper makes it sound as if it self-destructs like an Inspector Gadget note after 30 seconds, when in fact, the paper doesn't actually go anywhere.

To get a bit more technical about things, it is the images themselves that erase after a certain time-scale – at present, within 24 hours.

This works because the paper is coated with chemicals that react when exposed to light of a certain wavelength, producing visible words and images. However, this begins to disappear within a day, allowing the paper to be used multiple times.

Xerox has designed this paper on the premise that studies have shown 40% of print is disposed of within 24 hours and not kept for long-term use.

So it ticks the environmentally friendly box for starters.

Yet, I can't help but feel reminded of a very specific memory from my past: Christmas 1987, tearing chunks of sparkly wrapping paper with chubby fingers to reveal that pinnacle of pre-school artwork – the Etch A Sketch.

I can imagine the office revolution now… financial reports being drawn up in the boardroom with a magnetic pen. But seriously, you cannot get away from the obvious flaw – you cannot print on an Etch A Sketch – and don't even try it, it's not big and it's not clever.

The Xerox team's plans are very much still at the research stage and it will probably take years before we see the fruit of their labour.

But as a concept, it really isn't that bad is it? As a lowly office worker, I know for a fact that I am a tree's worst nightmare – casually throwing away paper with little thought of its source or where it might end up.

For quite a bulk of paper requirements, paper could be re-used, saving the rather costly need for recycling and allowing people like me to use my print outs for a second or third time without having to chuck it in the blue recycling bin under my desk and hope for the best.

The possibilities of this invention are quite far-reaching… school handouts, draft and design work, proof reading and so on.

Come to think of it, I rather like the idea. Just so long as my contract isn't printed on it…

What a week for Wyndeham, and it's only Tuesday

Jo Francis — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:48:00 GMT

Listening to "wake up to money" on the radio while still in bed and half asleep this morning, I'm sure I heard one of the presenters describe the international banking system as being in a state that could best be described as "DEFCON 1". By mid-morning the news that Landsbanki has effectively gone bust and had been nationalised was spreading through the industry.

What will this mean for Wyndeham? If Landsbanki's predicament means that Wyndeham's access to working capital is frozen along with the accounts of hundreds of thousands of UK savers, then it's going to be mighty problematic. Suppliers and customers were jumpy enough before this morning's events.

I hope for the group's sake it can put a statement out soon that will provide some semblance of clarity on the situation, but I don't imagine that Wyndeham's management are finding it terribly easy to pin down the precise implications of this morning's momentous events. They are at the mercy of forces that are beyond their control. We're in uncharted waters here, and compared to the potential scale of the Icelandic financial meltdown this investment in a little UK printing group is, unfortunately, mere bagatelle.

Back to the printed future

Chloe Setter — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:56:00 GMT

Some people say that books, newspapers – they are all ultimately destined for the giant shredder in the sky.

Others reckon that there is something long-lasting, tangible and psychologically pleasing about a good novel or an evening paper.

Me? I am afraid I am too busy getting uncomfortable on the fence on this one.

I read in an article on The New York Times website that an e-newspaper had been developed by Plastic Logic. Apparently this gadget will initially only be available in black and white, will be the size of a piece of copier paper and will be continually updated via a wireless link, keeping avid news fans up-to-date at all times.

There are still a lot of questions to be asked at this stage though – which papers will feature on the device? How much will it cost? What about colour? Moving images?

Only this summer, Orange and France Telecom trialled a prototype of the Read&Go – which allowed 100 testers to access top French newspapers Le Monde and Le Figaro via FTE's Orange cellular network, the results of which are yet to be revealed.

What with this and all the recent news about the Sony Reader and Amazon's Kindle, I started to wonder what the future really is all about for printed books and papers.

I know that I love books. There is something private about opening the page and getting lost inside its love-worn cover. And the thought of a digital Bible, or electronic Mills & Boon, just doesn't sit well to be honest.

It took a phone call to my Grandma in the end to help me resolve (sort of) the issue.

We spoke the other evening and she informed me about how busy she had been washing and drying her clothes.

You may wonder what this has to do with print (I am beginning to think that myself), but bear with me.

My Grandma washes her own clothes, by hand, as she always has done. A concept so alien to me that I still don't really understand the logistics of it. Of course, the odd 'handwash-only' has had a dunk in my sink but to wash each and every garment individually by hand and wait for them all to dry? Nonsense.

In such a modern and technology-driven world, this medieval practice left me stunned.

Yet these kind of traditions are exactly what makes some people believe that books and newspapers will never die out. People like what they know and love tradition, and books are something so inherently embedded in our daily lives from bedtime stories and chemistry textbooks to television guides and favourite works of fiction. How could we possibly imagine a world without them?

It is this that worries me… How could I imagine a world without washing machines?

Just as the idea of bending over a kitchen sink with permanently crinkly fingers is completely archaic, never mind painfully slow and a waste of my good time, perhaps printed books will become the 'handwashing' of the future – cumbersome, slow, heavy and out-of-date.

Will future generations have this unconditional love affair with the printed book? And more importantly, will I become the 'ghost of printing future' – an 89-year-old woman who seems so bewilderingly old-fashioned with a stash of paperbacks gathering dust on the shelves – my grandchildren looking on, e-readers pride of place in their pockets?

But book lovers, printers, newspaper addicts – don't panic yet. Just because something is smaller, more modern, or even more effective doesn't always make it popular with the paying public. Just look at Betamax and Mini Discs… One thing's for sure – the future is bright but mine it isn't going to be orange unless I make a mistake with the handwashing.

Mobiles rewrite e-reader rules

Matt Whipp — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 10:45:00 GMT

Turns out that while Amazon and Sony scrabble for the rights to own the e-reader market - such that it is - it could be the humble mobile phone that storms past into first place as the device of choice.

It makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Cost of entry: none - most of us own a mobile phone to start with so you don't need to come up with a spare £200 to take part. Plus the reading bill appears on your mobile statement, so you don't have to manage another set of transactions - which can be a real barrier to adoption.

In fact, this Forbes item suggests that Apple's iPhone is already proving more popular than the Kindle for reading books, with downloads of the free Stanza reading application outstripping Kindle sales by a long chalk.

But other mobile phone companies are also taking the idea seriously from a commercial "paid-for" point of view. Vodafone is to launch Vodafone Books on Mobile today, and are dodging the small screen, no e-paper problem by offering audio books at between £5 and £15 according to the Times. (Apparently Andy McNab is one of the names behind the project).

And finally France Telecom, which we know over here as Orange, is also trialling a mobile reader service - this time with a dedicated device.

More web offset woe

Jo Francis — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:35:00 GMT

I feel that I could easily spend all week glued to the Future Publishing story, as I'm sure the comments trail is going to make fascinating reading. Usually when a contract changes hands, the management at the losing company either: a) say nothing; b) say something suitably bland through gritted teeth; c) say something that attempts to downplay the importance of that work anyway.

So it's unusual, and rather refreshing, to see Wyndeham and Southernprint being so frank in their responses to the loss of their Future work. Both companies are sore, and who can blame them? It had seemed as if magazine printers could have reasonably expected some semblance of price stability by now, and the irony is that I'm reliably informed that when Future went into this process the publisher actually did not expect to be making any further savings on its print costs. But this is a sector where normal business rules don't apply - no matter how low the prices go, there's always someone who somehow manages to be (at least) 15% cheaper. I have to agree with the comment by Print Spectator, buyers don't drive prices down, printers do. It's a rare publisher indeed who will turn down a price cut in favour of the quality and service they receive from their existing supplier. There's probably only one publisher - two at a push - who fit that description here in the UK.

Polestar is being painted as the villain this time around, yet just a few weeks ago one of the group's directors was bending my ear about being undercut by 30% by a competitor on another mag job. So I await Polestar's comment on its Future win with interest. And what of William Gibbons? In web offset terms this company is an enigma wrapped up in a conundrum, as the firm is unusual not only in that it makes any profit whatsoever, but that in its last results it made a near-18% operating margin. Perhaps some sort of OPEC for web offset print should be created, and Mark Gibbons can chair it.

"Publisher to set up print plant, shock"

Jo Francis — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:33:00 GMT

Intrigued to read about the expressions of interest in up-for-sale Cooper Clegg, along with speculation that at least one publisher could be an interested party too... While I agree with Martin Bloomfield's comment on my previous post on this topic in that most publishers doubtless have no desire to get involved in printing, it could turn out that ultimately they have no choice in the matter.

And in a timely piece of news just in, I saw today that Australian publisher ACP (the firm that bought Emap's Oz interests) has announced plans to set up its own in-house printing facility. While the print landscape is very different down under, with not much in the way of print supplier choice once you get to a certain scale, it is nonetheless an interesting and significant move for ACP to go it alone.

E-books may not be spawn of the devil

Jo Francis — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 11:25:00 GMT

I went to a book reading last night at a central London branch of Waterstone's (Estrella Damn by Matthew Loukes, since you ask, I can highly recommend it). Hanging about in a book shop after hours was rather fun, and simply surveying the books on offer in what is a relatively compact store was an eye-opener in itself.

Looking at the vast array of book formats and cover treatments (including a football book with an Astroturf cover, which rather leapt out from the shelf) made me think about how the physical and design aspects of a title play such an important part in purchasing decisions - particularly impulse buys. And similarly, how the tactile nature of a printed book can contribute so much in itself to the reading pleasure. At home I have a 1949 "thin paper edition" of Everybody's Pepys that is such a beautiful little book in its own right, it counts as a favourite possession even aside from the words of the great diarist.

And so it was with a heavy heart that I noted that the aforementioned Waterstone's has just published its first top ten list of bestselling e-book titles, and this week Sony has embarked upon a massive promotional campaign in the States to promote its e-book reader. This campaign will involve Sony giving away some 15 million (yes million) e-book titles to schools and education institutions, along with several hundred readers, so it seems like a pretty big push. I wonder if they will do something similar over here.

While my knee-jerk reaction is to be anti-e-book, perhaps I should challenge my prejudices. Perhaps I should buy one. If I happen upon a spare £200 kicking about, I will. But expense aside, if the widespread advent of e-books will result in more people, and particularly younger people, reading then hopefully that will be a good thing for the book category overall. It could also spur further innovation in terms of the print techniques used in the production of the physical versions. Which brings to mind a couple of recent publications that I can't imagine working quite as well in an e-format: The Mighty Book of Boosh and the Folio Society's Letterpress Hamlet (in fact, everything produced by the Folio Society) make me confident that the appeal of printed books will endure.

Next Potter movie hits the press

Matt Whipp — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:13:00 GMT

Quite literally - the word in the world of Harry Potter fanzines is that the final movie (The Deathly Hallows) currently being filmed features a printing press based on a century old 10-ton Cossar flat bed web newspaper press. There's only one left in the world, belonging to David Phillips, from Crieff, Perthshire.

And so it begins...

Jo Francis — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 10:53:00 GMT

I'm wondering if my brain is located on some sort of web offset ley line. News that Pindar has put Cooper Clegg up for sale came just hours after yesterday's musings regarding the future shape of the magazine printing sector.

It's easy to question whether the original decision to buy the Tewkesbury print plant just 17 months ago was made more with the heart than the head, but it wasn't unreasonable for Pindar's management team to be of the belief that the market had hit rock bottom, and there had to be an upside coming. As it turns out this particular market seems to be some sort of bottomless pit of sub-economic pricing - print's very own Mariana Trench.

Global financial meltdown notwithstanding, who could be in the frame as a possible purchaser? It's difficult to see a buyer emerging from among the existing UK players, most of whom would rather see capacity being taken out of the market for once. But then as we know all too well this is a market in which the normal rules of business logic don't necessarily apply. I also wonder what the publishing community will make of this news. Will it influence the decisions being made as part of Bauer Consumer Media's ongoing print review? I imagine that more than a few phones will be red hot today.

The statement from Pindar announcing its intention to sell the business contains this rather pointed sentence: "The [Pindar] Board believes that the Cooper Clegg business would fit better with an organisation which has a larger presence in the publishing market or a publisher looking for a guaranteed supply chain."

A return to publishers doing their own printing? Now there's an interesting topic for future discussion. We may not be at squeaky-bum time just yet, but could it come to that?

Oh, and a brief follow-up to another previous post, one of Wyndeham's Icelandic shareholders (Stodir, formerly FL Group) has gone into administration.

The Pen Room

caroline Archer — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 08:38:00 GMT

The Pen Room is a lovely museum in Birmingham. For more than a century Birmingham was the centre of the world pen trade employing thousands of people. With its unique blend of ingenuity and industrial expertise found Birmingham was in the forefront of steel pen design from the 19th century until the decline of pen making after World War II. It was in 1790 that Samuel Harrison of Birmingham produced one of the first handmade steel pens for Joseph Priestly (the man who discovered oxygen), but it wasn’t until 1822 that John Mitchell first mass-produced pens using hand presses. By the 1830s Joseph Gillott, Josiah Mason and John & William Mitchell had all become major producers of still pens and during the 19th Century over 100 companies grew up in the area. The availability of cheap pens enabled the development of education and literacy throughout the world. The Pen Museum works to ensure this important part of Birmingham’s history receives the recognition it deserves.

Magazines in the spotlight

Jo Francis — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:10:00 GMT

Hopefully everyone in the industry with an interest is already aware of this, but just in case, please be aware that today marks the start of Magazine Week 2008, organised by the PPA.

I'm eagerly awaiting the results of their poll on the "best British magazine cover", and shall be doing as the campaign urges by trying a magazine or two outside of my normal repertoire. I currently have in mind an eclectic mix of The Lady, Kerrang!, and Fur & Feather - if I can get hold of a copy.

Unsurprisingly, in common with most people who work in publishing I'm a big fan of magazines in general, so it was encouraging to read in the PPA's fact file that consumer expenditure on the medium has grown by 48% in the decade since the dawn of the internet.

But this got me thinking. During that period publishers have also benefited from low paper and seemingly ever-cheaper print production prices, and I can't help feeling that things will be very different in the coming decade. News that M-real has sold its publishing paper business to Sappi broke this very morning, and such consolidation is the inevitable result of overcapacity and unacceptable returns among papermakers. As we know paper prices are already on the way up.

And what of the health of the UK magazine printing sector? It's looking like the last rites are in order for some of the players on my current "watch list". Consolidation? Maybe, but it's an expensive game. Closures? Almost certainly.

Come Magazine Week 2009 we may even be in an era of more realistic print pricing, which will make life interesting for publishers who've grown used to having their bottom line inflated by ever-decreasing production costs. Whisper it, but print prices can go up as well as down.

Publish and be damned

Matt Whipp — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 09:44:00 GMT

The Times and The Guardian report today that police arrested three men on suspicion of plotting to murder the publisher of a controversial novel in a petrol bomb attack.

Martin Rynja is to publish Sherry Jones' The Jewel of Medina which reportedly contains a sex scene between Mohammed and his wife A'isha under his company Gibson Square Publishing.

The book was dropped by Random House earlier this year because the company was concerned it might anger muslims. Turned out it was right.

I don't know who has been contracted to print the book, but given what has befallen the publisher, it would most likely be unwise to publish the name here in any case.

However, the episode does pose questions for print-on-demand publishers. Given the direct model in operation - author uploads the book - buyer buys it - then are they effectively acting as publisher but with little or no vetting of what it is they actually publish?

This thorny issue has had a legal precedent already set in the US in terms of defamation in Sandler v. Calcagni. I'll let Mark Glaser precis it (from his Media Shift blog)

"The case started with a dispute between two high school cheerleaders over (what else?) a boy. According to the court’s opinion, one of the cheerleaders, Calcagni, and some of her friends harassed Sandler with religious epithets. Eventually, Calcagni was convicted of a hate crime for allegedly spray-painting a swastika near Sandler’s home.

"Calcagni’s parents decided to tell their side of the story with a tell-all book about the incident. They printed the book through BookSurge, and purchased several hundred copies, which they distributed to friends, family and local bookstores. Several other parties also purchased copies of the book online.

"Not surprisingly, Sandler sued Calcagni, her parents, the freelancer and BookSurge. BookSurge made a motion to dismiss the claims against it, arguing that it should not be held liable as a publisher for purposes of defamation law."

The court found that Amazon's BookSurge was not liable. Why? Because it had had little involvement with the author or the content of the book and so could not be considered publisher.

But it still leaves POD companies between a rock and a hard place. You either don't get involved at all and run the risk of arson attacks and who knows what else depending on what it is you are printing (remember, you DON'T know what it is - it could be anything), but in a (US) court not be held liable as publisher. Or vet what you print but face all the legal responsibilities of being a publisher.

I'm not sure I have an answer for that.

Get Creative at Total Print! Expo

Alison Carter — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 09:11:00 GMT

Printing World and PrintBuyer magazine has put together a really informative and useful series of seminars for the first two days of Total Print! Expo. More details can be found at http://www.totalprintexpo.com/.

In my line of work I see many, many examples of wonderful print. It has always seemed a shame to me that I can’t share these wonderful creations with more people. But now I can…

On the 15^th October, the second day of Total Print! Expo, I shall be showing a good sample of different kinds of print and highlighting a very special campaign from capsule8 that has given me and my fellow comrades in the office a lot of smiles.

So if you are popping along to Total Print! Expo and want to just see what can be done in our clever, innovative market sector come to the Seminar Theatre at 3pm. I look forward to meeting you.

From PrintWeek