POD: Ready for Prime Time

by Jim Milliot -- Publishers Weekly, 12/11/2006

An improvement in production quality and lower costs will result in a dramatic increase in the use of print-on-demand manufacturing in the next few years, predicts a study sponsored by Vista International. Although POD has been available in one form or another for more than 10 years, many top managers have been reluctant to use the technology because of concerns about quality and costs-per-unit. But with manufacturers introducing better production capablities—including color—and costs falling, executives are starting to look again at the feasibility of POD.

To gauge where publishers stand on digital printing, the authors of the report, Trends in Print-on-Demand, surveyed 24 publishers in the U.S. and U.K. Twenty-two of the publishers reported that they use digital printing in either its "true" form (for single-copy books) or for short-run printing. Of that total, 12 publishers use POD for both single-copy and short-run printing, while eight use it only for short print runs and two use it exclusively for single copies. Five of the eight publishers using POD strictly for short runs said they expect to be using true POD within three years.

Also within the three-year time frame, 55% of the survey respondents said they expect the use of digital printing to increase substantially, while 32% said they expect some increase. Academic publishers are the most bullish on digital printing; the eight academic publishers that took part in the survey reported that digital printing accounted for between 15% and 30% of total revenue, and that 50% to 90% of all their titles are in digital formats. The eight trade publishers who participated reported that only 5% of revenue comes from POD. All publishers predicted that revenue as well as the number of titles available in digital format will increase steadily.