PW: LPC on Demand

"Every distributor is wrestling with a shifting customer. In form and function, distributors are looking more like publishers," commented David Wilk, president of the LPC Group. Ten-year-old LPC recently formed its own Olmstead Press to publish in partnership with other companies, including the Independent Innkeepers Association and E-Reads, the publishing house newly established by agent Richard Curtis. With its first list due out this fall, LPC is looking forward to what Peggy Parfenoff, director of corporate communications, predicts will be Olmstead's "first blockbuster"--The Diana Conspiracy Exposed: The Definitive Account of the Last Days and Death of Diana, Princess of Wales, by BBC investigative reporter Martyn Gregory. It will be launched with a 50,000-copy first printing later this month.

The first books are also rolling off the press at CometPrint, LPC's new instant publishing division, which uses the Sprout print-on-demand system. "What I love," Wilk told PW, "is we're printing in our office. It's not a warehouse function." In addition to keeping slower-selling titles in print--some sell as few as five copies a month--CometPrint has the added advantage of reducing the cost of printing advance reader's copies. For instance, LPC was able to do a special CometPrint run for What Women Need to Know by Marianne Legato and Carol Colman so that books could be at a women's health conference before finished books, printed on a traditional press, were available. "I actually think our galley capability is going to be a major benefit for our publishers," noted Wilk. "It streamlines the process. The galleys are all printed in our facility and sent out to reviewers from here."

In other news, LPC added 16 publishers in June and July, bringing its client base to just under 100. The newest additions are: Arcturian Books, Atlantic Ireland Publishing, Bella Books, Big Guy Books, Brookline Books/Lumen Editions, CavanKerry Press, Chimera Publishing, Chrome Dreams, Cool Grove Press, Crown House Publishing, Enigma Books, PseudoVox, Quantum Leap Thinking, Survival Books Limited, This Mother's Daughter and Vision Works.