Digital book production is not a new phenomenon, but according to John Conley, VP, publishing, at Xerox Production Systems, this industry segment may see explosive growth over the coming years. "Its a very exciting time to be part of the digital book industry because its growing across all aspects of the book market," he says. "Now we have this new market of Web-based publishing, which can only be fulfilled through Web-based print."

　　What hes referring to is the wide range of books that might never make it to the shelves of the local Barnes & Noble or B. Daltons, but which are being produced in ever-greater numbers by small publishers, private corporations and companies, colleges and universities, and individual authors. These might include books from science-technical-medical (STM) publishers, who were among the earliest adopters of digital book production technologies, but also full-color picture books for children that can be personalized with a childs name, hard-copy editions of blogs, hobbyist books, personal travelogs, family histories, and fiction.

　　The University of Michigan and the University of California, among other institutions, are participating in a project to scan the books in their libraries published prior to the digital revolutionbefore 1990 or thereaboutsand which exist only in hard copy format. Some of these may be classics, but many are on topics with a limited market appeal that wouldnt justify the cost of offset printing 10,000 copies and warehousing them. Once the volumes have been digitized, they will all be available for on-demand digital book production in volumes as small as one at a time.
This is Web-based publishing, as Conley defines it. "The distribution channel is part of the economics that makes it work. It doesnt go through the traditional retail channels. And it doesnt use mainstream publishing, nor the production tools of mainstream publishing. Its a different strategy from trade, education, or STM books. Some of it is driven by cost-avoidance, some by revenue enhancement," he says.

　　While the new market of Web-based publishing is developing, even traditional trade publishers are adopting digital book production for some of their needs. Conventional offset printed book galleys, at one time the edition that most reviewers saw weeks before a book was released, have been largely replaced by digitally-produced prepublication copies produced in volumes of perhaps 500 or 600. While mass-market trade books are still offset printed, once demand for a title has cooled, many publishers and authors opt to keep their books in print by retaining the digital file and producing hard copies in very small volumes or to fulfill orders only on demand. Lightning Source Inc. (LSI) of Tennessee founded by book distributor Ingram Industries, moved quickly into this market about a decade ago, negotiating deals with major publishers to handle this end of the business. LSI is now one of the largest digital book production companies in the world.

　　With so much activity in book publishing, many printers may find digital book production a viable profit center. Theyll also find that there are many ways to produce a book and a variety of hardware, software, and finishing systems to make it happen.

　　Dedicated Production

　　Volume is a consideration even in niche book production. The highest volume digital book production systems are variously called roll-fed, web-fed, or continuous form. These systems are built for speed and occupy the high-volume end of the digital book production marketplace. For example, IBM offers the 4100 Series of continuous form printers with systems installed at LSI, R.R. Donnelley, and Quebecor World. They are designed for dedicated book production lines.

　　"I think whats changing is that the adoption rate is increasing," notes Chris Reid, commercial print offerings manager, IBM Printing Systems. "The tools arent that new. We announced JDF support 18 months to two years ago, and its just now the customers are beginning to integrate JDF workflows. Web-based submission is probably two to three years old. So the tools are not dramatically new, but adoption rates are picking up, and there are a couple reasons driving that. One is the exceptional quality of the continuous form printers, and the improvement in print quality over time. We made a major leap around year 2000 with the 4100 Series."

　　"Publishers are now used to digital print quality and the pricing models have gotten a lot better," Reid adds that they "are used to the business models now, so digital production is a lot more common. Publishers now are trying to figure out how they can work digital into their workflow, what vendors they can work with, how they can distribute worldwide with digital. Its not the printers anymore knocking on the doors saying, We want to sell you digital.?The publishers now are actually asking for it."

　　Another brand developed for high-speed and volume book production is Delphax Technologies, Inc. "Were at the high end of the digital book printing segment because weve got the fastest equipment out there," says Scott Robertz, product manager. "Our CR2000 runs at 450 feet per minute (fpm), the equivalent of almost 2,000 8.5"x11" page impressions per minute. What that enables us to doand were unique in this wayis to talk to book printers about their run lengths. Most book printers have specific break-even points where its more cost effective to print digital versus offset. Were able to push down that curve a bit. With our equipment it might be economical to do runs up to 2,000 or 2,500, where with other equipment the run is probably going to be 1,000 or 1,500. It opens up opportunities to print a broader range of titles." The company has just announced that next year throughput speeds will be even higher for their equipment.

　　Robertz also notes that Delphax employs a tight web of paper between the two engines that print on both sides of the sheet. The tension in the web lets the CR models use lighter weight papers than some other book production systems, and this can be a factor in producing books like financial reports and some types of technical books and manuals, which have traditionally been printed on lightweight stocks. "You can take the same roll of paper and roll it up to your offset press or roll it up to one of our CR presses, and the look and feel of the book will be the same," Robertz says.

　　To keep the CR2000 running, Delphax also offers an optional web splicer. "These are very common in the offset press world, but were the only ones who do it in the digital world," Robertz states. "Typically, it will take ten to15 minutes to change a roll. With a web splicer, this is automated, which is significant when were printing at these speeds. The CR2000 can go through a 40" roll of paper in an hour so."

　　Oc?USA comes to the book production market from a transactional printing background. The company recommends its roll-fed VarioStream printers for digital book production, both for their speed and reliability.
"Whats a book printer? Whats a book? Operator manuals, comic books, etc. Every commercial printer in this country does some of that," says Duncan Newton, manager of business development, Oc? "Whats happened over the past couple of years is the traditional distribution modelwhere the publisher sells to a distributor, who is supplied by a printerseems to have taken a beating due to people like Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. These people are shipping out of a zero inventory in most cases. Except for the popular titles, the Harry Potters and DaVinci Codes, books are coming out of an on-demand model."

　　Ocs VarioStream 7000 roll-fed system is the one used most frequently for book production, Newton says, though the company also offers the VarioStream 9000 with up to three-over-three highlight color capabilities. Oc?will even mix a custom highlight color to produce brand-accurate pages for things like corporate reports or operator manuals.
　　Newton adds that the VarioStream will accept a wide range of papers, and because Oc?doesnt use electrophotographic technologies to lay down toner, the printed pages can be laminated using the same UV coating or laminating systems used for offset. These types of lamination dont adhere very well to pages printed on toner-based systems.

　　"Think of what high-speed B&W printers produce?,300 pages per minute," says Newton. "All of a sudden, you dont need a football field of these things, or an army of operators. Take any good high-speed B&W printer and put a roll of paper on the end, and youre good for hours. Nobody has to go look at the thing. One operator can probably run three or four of these things. Then you have the warriors at the back end, offloading them and taking them to the bindery. Think of what a savings, just in people."

　　Diversified Units

　　Like most types of production equipment, high-speed digital book production systems need to run steadily to be profitable. Unless a printer has publishing customers lined up, or is shifting some offset work to digital, less specialized or more flexible systems might be a wise choice.

　　Punch Graphixs brand Xeikon offers the flagship Xeikon 5000 digital color press to handle variable data commercial print jobs, packaging, short runs of books, and more. The 5000 is capable of 600dpi resolution, and was designed to increase uptime and maximize the profit of digital printing with a unique one-pass Duplex technology that simultaneously prints on both sides of the paper. The web-fed, Xeikon 5000 can print multi-page documents with speeds up to 16 cm/sec and 32 ft/minutes equal to 130 A4 pages per minute, in fully collated order. Xeikons own X-800 digital front end (DFE) system is integrated with the 5000, including streamer technology allowing for high-end variable data printing. Xeikon boasts the ability to handle media at 500-508 mm in width and weights of 40 to 350 gsm.
Xerox Corporation offers a comprehensive line of both B&W (Nuvera) and color (iGen) systems adaptable for digital book production. A key factor is in workflow, and Xeroxs FreeFlow suite of applications provides modules specifically for book production as well as for other types of work.

　　"The document workflow has to be very dynamic, not designed for a specific output device," says Dan Hufnagel, workflow product manager, Xeroxs Production Systems Group. "A lot of our effort is put into comprehending what our customers want to do, understanding that their markets are flexible in terms of the capabilities they want. FreeFlow allows them to print ten books today, 1,000 tomorrow, and on a completely different device, with changing no more than the quantity of the document. Process Manger is an application we use extensively for preflight, imposition, layout, comprehending how the document is oriented, and sheet size. All factors are considered and can be set up automatically."

　　"Were reaching up further into the customers order entry system," he adds. "Were able to take incoming orders and drive them right to the production floor, so that the job is produced in the most efficient way."
Xerox, of course, is not alone in providing workflow applications, and like most others, utilizes a PDF-based workflow that supports shifting a job from digital to offset or vice versa as circumstances and customers may require.
Canon U.S.A, Inc. and Kodak are also key suppliers of equipment for digital book production. Kodaks Graphic Communications business offers the NexPress digital color system as well as the B&W Digimaster for this market. Kodak also markets Canons CLC color digital output devices; and Canons imageRUNNER 110 is an OEM version of the Kodak Digimaster. These presses are essentially cut sheet systems, but also can be adapted for roll-fed stocks.
"You get into the question of what do you consider to be a book," says Kathleen Cervi, product manager, Kodak Graphic Communications. "That can depend on the way you bind it, if youre thinking about perfect bound or hardcover."

　　She notes that manufacturers of products as far-ranging as tractors and cell phones provide bound product/operator manuals and training materials that qualify as books, and these are often produced only on demand, sometimes only when a product is shipped. For printer providers, this is the just-in-time fulfillment model, a business that can be highly profitable. Rather than printing thousands of these types of books and warehousing them, printers retain the digital files and produce only as many books as might be required for next weeks or next months orders. Because the content is digital, it can be updated quickly, and it can be versioned with slightly different editions for different products, geographic reasons, or demographic targets. The very short run and very quick turnaround necessary for this type of fulfillment business model require digital print production.

　　Cervi notes that education is another growing area for digital book production. Textbooks must be reviewed and approved by state and local boards of education before they are purchased in any quantity, and with digital book production technologies, textbook publishers are now able to develop and produce only a few hundred approval copies of textbooks that address the curriculum requirements and interests of different states and regions. Once a textbook is approved, it may be offset printed in the tens of thousands, with a much lower volume of supplemental materials, or perhaps continuing to be produced primarily on digital presses.

　　Cervi adds, "We have Intelligent Glossing and Intelligent Coating in our system. With these solutions you now have something similar to a laminate on your book. With our NexGlosser, were able to put on a clear protective coating that masks the digitally-printed sheet so that the surface is even and doesnt show relief. You can leave it like that, which is a satin look, or you could take that and put it in a near-line device that will polish it as high as the brightest laminate."

　　While Canon and Kodak offer similar hardware, the companies market the products with their own peripherals and front-end systems. Rich Lord, production systems manager, Canon U.S.A. Inc., notes that Canons imageRUNNER 110 is supported by the companys mission-critical service network. Canon also offers sales training programs and support for customers looking to enter the digital printing and digital book production marketplace.

　　The Future of Digital Books

　　With the increasing adoption of digital book production, both by publishers and other businesses, this is a market segment that promises solid growth for the future. The systems now available put the market within reach of print service providers looking to add profitable new capabilities.