Quad/Graphics

Judging the health of the book publishing industry is a lot like viewing a national weather map. The happy sun icon is shown here and there, but some angry clouds are clustered in certain areas. And in an era where the electronic reader is bludgeoning ink on paper, studies show that readership is growing on all fronts.

Santa won’t be scaling any prison fences this holiday season in 
an attempt to deliver presents to former printing industry employees now serving sentences for bilking hundreds of thousands, and even millions, of dollars from their former employers.

Commercial printing industry news briefs, including items on RR Donnelley, Sandy Alexander, Quad/Graphics, Yurchak Printing, Brown Printing, Modernistic, Transcontinental, WildfireXM, West Linn Paper, Mohawk Fine Papers and Presstek.

While 2010 was resplendent with major printing company acquisitions, its successor came and went with little fanfare. Asset sales and closures took center stage in 2011, and crime continued to play a leading role from a news standpoint.

There was some good news for magazine publishers this year, as advertising sales levels 
began to rebound. Looking at the catalog segment, there is no evidence of the printed catalog disappearing any time soon. A key focus for publishers and catalogers is how to continue to leverage their multi-channel marketing strategies.

A small Canadian publishing house has just scored an epic publishing touchdown. Dauphin Media Group (DMG) will be publishing the official magazine of the National Football League (NFL), appropriately named NFL Magazine. So how did a small Canadian outfit manage to score this massive licensing agreement win?

Sam Yoon, DMG’s senior vice-president of business and legal affairs, admits it may appear to be an unexpected partnership...“But [the NFL] liked us and realized that we had the ability and capacity to do the magazine.”

There will be 400,000 copies of the debut issue on newsstands. Quad/Graphics will print the magazine

Those of us in the ink-on-paper side of the publishing world have become accustomed to our vendors and sellers going through bankruptcy reorganization. But seeing Quad/Graphics and Barnes & Noble listed recently by Business Insider among “The Next 11 Big Companies that Could Go Bankrupt” was a bit of a jolt.

When a big printer (Quebecor World) went Chapter 11 in 2008, it was no big surprise. Nor was the demise earlier this year of the big Borders bookstore chain. But Quad and B&N are supposed to be the strong survivors who benefit from the demise of their less nimble and

Quad, which listed its shares in July 2010 as part of its acquisition of Canadian rival World Color, has seen its stock plunge from its post-merger peak of $48.80 in September 2010. It has lost three quarters of its value and recently has hovered near its all-time low of $12.14.

While Quad said it is on target to use the merger to create new efficiencies and lower production costs...the saving has been eaten up by unanticipated costs, said Scott Cuthbertson, an analyst who tracks media industries at the Toronto Dominion Bank Group in Toronto.

Quad calls them “frictional” costs: transferring publication

SUSSEX, WI—Quad/Graphics Inc., which has expanded its digital book production capacity by more than 500 percent this year, has forged a new agreement with Penguin Group (USA), a U.S. adult and children’s trade book publisher, for short-run and print-on-demand production of Penguin’s U.S. trade hardcover, trade paperback and mass market books. The agreement covers all of Penguin’s imprints.

Quad, which has expanded its digital book production capacity by more than 500 percent this year, will handle short-run and print-on-demand production of Penguin Group’s U.S. trade hardcover, trade paperback and mass market books, including all imprints.