Overseas Sourcing — China: A Limited Threat

Certain products beg to be outsourced: medium-length sheetfed runs for trade publishing, such as children’s books (especially pop-ups), cook books, coffee table works, and photographic and art books with high-quality illustrations. Products with long lead times and heavy doses of hand assembly also fall into this category. There are other printed items that can be more economically produced overseas, such as posters and calendars, but books clearly pose the greatest danger to North American printers.