Archive for May 22nd, 2009:

Once associated only with vanity presses, digital printing (including print-on-demand and short run) is becoming an increasingly attractive option, and in some cases a necessity, for publishers who are looking to cut costs. Improvements in digital technology have done much to legitimize this method, too. The quality of digital books has gone up considerably in recent years, such that many of them are indistinguishable—to the average book buyer, at least—from those produced by traditional offset printing methods.

In the last few years academic and nonprofit presses have been leading the charge on the digital revolution. Since 2002 the volume of on-demand and short-run digital titles in print has increased exponentially.

On Tuesday Publishers Weekly reported that 2008 marked something of a tipping point for the fledgling industry, as more new books were printed in the U.S. last year with digital technology than with traditional publishing methods. According to statistics provided by Bowker (publisher of Books in Print), “new and revised titles produced by traditional production methods fell 3% in 2008, to 275,232, but the number of on-demand and short run titles soared 132%, to 285,394.”

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•