Digital Book Production: The Demands of On Demand

Digital print also mitigates inventory costs and the risk of book returns. "We have a customer who publishes romance novels," Albee notes. "They used to print around 50,000 books a month on offset, but they were throwing away between 8,000 and 15,000 books every month. Now, they print 35,000 a month on offset and, as each book starts to sell, they print another 1,000 to 3,000 or more digitally, to meet the fluctuating demand. It's a complementary manufacturing strategy that reduces overall costs."