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(continued from page 20) savings, he says. Also viewing on-demand books as a growth area is Chuck Stempler, CEO and president of AlphaGraphics in Seattle, with six locations. "The space is very active for us," he says. "We do a lot of marketing on the Internet, and about 10 to 15 percent of inquiries we receive via Internet marketing are about books." Interest in on-demand books comes from a wide array of quarters. Those who develop coursework for university students often need a service to maintain a backlist and provide fulfillment, Stempler says. Demand for on-demand books also comes from corporate trainers, the conventional publishing world, and the sector of the industry generally referred to as vanity publishing, he says. Getting Started When getting started as a provider of on-demand books, it's essential to understand the minimal equipment set necessary to be viable, Stempler says. "The first thing is output, color and blackand-white," he advises. "Then there is the finishing component. You have to find a bindery that is cost-effective and capable with orders of maybe one or two hundred books. "There are some ancillary things about the cover. Many people want either a UV flood coat or a thin lamination to protect the cover, and you have to know where to go for that capability as well, assuming you don't have it in-house. It's important to find a competitive source for these. Turnaround time is not super critical, but you do need to understand the cycle." Print service providers should have at least a 12x18-inch piece of digital equipment for blackand-white printing, with Revenue from E-books Providing e-books can be another source of income for those who produce on-demand books. At Total Printing Systems, e-books are offered as an ancillary service to customers. "It's not something we aggressively pursue, but we accommodate requests from customers," Lindemann says. Asked if his Seattle-area AlphaGraphics offer e-books, Stempler responds, "We do, and it's an additional charge." 13x19-inch better, he says. In color, they must have 13x19-inch capability in order to accommodate book spines. Until reaching a volume of, say, 1,500 to 2,000 books a month, he says, they are "probably not looking at acquiring in-house perfect binding or lamination or flood UV coating." As for Lindemann, he believes that beginners must ensure they have, he says, "a digital engine of some sort. It doesn't really matter what the technology is. But it essentially has to have zero makeready. From a bindery standpoint, [the selection] would depend on your customer base. Go with whatever is your most popular bind style, and try to focus on doing that efficiently first, before going out and adding a lot of capabilities new to you." cess of on-demand books must like challenges and a bit of problem solving. "You are going to have to learn the hard way on a couple of projects," he says. "But we're not talking rocket science. It's a source of steady work, and it can be very lucrative. Books have a lot of pages in them. And if you've constructed your estimate properly, you've got markup on every sheet of paper and every image on that paper." Lindemann feels one of the keys to success is eliminating as many human touches as possible, from the order entry stage to final production. However, he says, "We still like to have human interaction with our customers, and we still like to have a human eye check files as they come in to some degree. You have to be careful about the steps in which you introduce automation." He also believes it's crucial to keep up with technology advancements in printing. If you waited too long to get into digital printing or on-demand work, you may find customers have found homes elsewhere, he says. Training or Hiring the Proper Skills In offering on-demand books, hiring the right kinds of people is essential, Lindemann says. "Quality control is the (continued on page 41) Keys to Success According to Stempler, "You must want to be in this space." Those who make a suc- What about Outsourcing? If your company doesn't have the capability to produce on-demand books, but would still like to offer that service to clients, it's entirely possible to forge partnerships with printers that have cultivated on-demand book capabilities. "We work for a handful of commercial printers that have not entered the digital space, but have clients that want this," AlphaGraphics' Stempler says. "The Total Printing Solutions still relies on the human touch as part of its production process. commercial printer will turn these projects over to us, we'll run the job a little tighter on costs, the printer will mark it up, and everyone is happy." w w w. M y P R I N T R e s o u r c e . c o m May 2013 / QUICK PRINTING 23