Business

Publishing a book to meet specific demands -even one copy

By Lian Mo (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-11-01 11:20

BEIJING - When Zheng Jingqiu was about to have a baby a year ago, her friends Peng Jianhua and his wife wanted to give her a unique gift.

Instead of scouring the shops, Peng turned to his newly started business of printing on demand (POD).

Peng knew that Zheng was writing an online blog to her baby called Diary to Maimai during her pregnancy, so he turned the words into a picture book, all without Zheng's knowledge. Included on the cover were the words "Limited Edition".

"She was very surprised and loved the gift very much, which was an encouragement because my business was not good at the beginning," Peng said.

Peng's POD business, Legend Color Printing Ltd in Beijing, is part of a growing line in printing where clients can order any number of copies of a book to be printed - even if it's just one.

Traditional printers using technology such as offset printing usually require a minimum of 2,000 copies before accepting an order, he said.

"The more copies are printed, the lower the cost will be," Peng said.

But POD uses digital printing that simplifies the whole process, with prices dependent on the number of pages and the type of paper.

"For example, if you print a 200-page book, it will only take about one hour and cost 40 yuan ($6) each. And you can choose your cover, font size and even binding style," Peng said.

Bowker, the global bibliographic information provider, said that in the United States, the number of books produced by POD overtook that of traditional book production two years ago.

Last year, 764,448 "nontraditional" books - mainly on-demand - were published, compared to the 288,355 books produced by traditional publishers.

In China, with e-reading gaining popularity, fewer books are being printed.

POD also saves time when compared with offset printing. It takes about six processes and few days to make the plates in offset printing. But digital printing in POD can print books from electronic copies the same day. "Our printers can print 160 pages both sides every minute," Peng said.

As people write and read on the Web or through their handsets, "an increasing number of them begin to miss the time when words are kept black and white on the paper - and that is where we find business", Peng said.

Zhou Hui, a 33-year-old accountant in Beijing, has ordered a calendar through Legend Color.

"The calendar will be made using some of my family photos. I think a unique family calendar is a good gift for my mother," he said.

Academic books are also popular products of POD publishers.

China-pub.com, which offers POD services to netizens, prints mostly academic books. The website has 1,500 titles, which cover such areas as computer science, mathematics and business management.

"These books cannot be found on the market, but small groups of people still want them," said Li Liang, a manager of china-pub, which sells about six POD books daily.

Gao Xin, a researcher of the China Academy of Printing Technology in Beijing, said that in China, the POD marketshare is only about 3 percent.

"But POD is definitely the future of the industry and the number of books being printed this way has been doubling every year for the past few years," he said.

Gao said POD equipment is very expensive and may take five years to recover the cost. As such, only few printing houses are willing to do the business.

Peng said Legend Color spent more than 4 million yuan on two printers and it will take him a long time to recoup the investment.

China Daily