A portrait of Canadian book printers

With news of the Quebecor bankruptcy in 2008 and the drastic employment cuts across Canada’s manufacturing, banking and finance sectors, it would be easy to assume that the Canadian book printing industry, too, is in need of a moral boost. But, that would be an oversimplification.

Interviews with some of the largest book printing companies in North America, two of which, Friesens Corporation and Webcom, are based in Manitoba and Ontario, paint an entirely different picture – a picture of resilience, long-term thinking and an unwavering belief in technological investment.

At a time when it seems that Amazon’s Kindle and e-books are poised to banish the humble book and most of our knowledge about the world comes from newsbytes, it is easy to lump books into an old-fashioned luxury for the few (those with time on their hands). But, when it comes to the industry, books span many different products beyond the revered hardcover to include children’s books, self-published books and continuing education textbooks.

Let’s not forget that books were pivotal to the making of Canada. As written in History of the Book in Canada: Volume 1, Beginnings to 1840 (edited by Patricia Lockhart Fleming, Gilles Gallichan and Yvan Lamonde), the beginnings of this country were formed on the word, or more specifically, the circulation of the printed word. The printed word was important from the beginning of European contact and of French and English colonization. Printing was key to the state and the church, not only for administrative uses, but also, to maintain authority and promote social unity. For instance, in New France, where there was no printing press, church officials in Paris could continue to exert control, even to the point of editing and revising printed editions of the Jesuit Relations. In another example, Upper Canadian protestants were able to use printed papers and pamphlets to debate, defend and advance their own spiritual differences and ultimately, compete in a colony caught in between extreme partisan views.

In 2008, with decreasing margins, currency catastrophes, discounts and consolidation in the bookselling sector, there were many signs that the Canadian publishing industry was in serious trouble.

In 2009, the Canadian book printing industry faces significant challenges and opportunities much more complex than those of the nation’s predecessors. Nonetheless, Canadians still continue to buy books. Furthermore, evidence from the Survey of Household Spending suggests that book publishers may be doing better than other areas of the publishing industry despite factors such as free information on the Internet and how this availability has affected Canadians’ willingness to pay for book content.

And, the most recent Statistics Canada summary of the book publishing industry suggests that book publishing revenues in Canada were $2.1 billion in 2006 alone, while total expenses came to $1.9 billion. Of the total revenues, 10.3% were before-tax profits.
Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario residents were the most keen book buyers, as spending on books exceeded the national average in all three provinces. Not surprisingly, Ontario and Quebec dominate the Canadian book publishing industry. Together, the two provinces accounted for 91% of industry operating revenues in 2006. British Columbia generated 6% of industry revenues.

Fast forward to 2009 and book printing company executives from Friesens Corporation, Webcom, Green Printer and Houghton Boston are all acutely aware of the economic downturn, international outsourcing pressures, the fast pace of technological innovation, and last but not least, the industry’s need to address its history of environmental practices.

Economic challenges to opportunities

No doubt, with the global, downturned economy and Transcontinental Inc.’s 10% cut to its North American workforce in February 2009, Canadian book printers have been quick to reflect on their competitive business strategy and invest in the latest printing equipment to ensure the highest-quality runs.

Mike Collinge, president and CEO of Webcom, sees the uncertain economy as an opportunity to invest in people and technology.

Webcom manufactures books for trade publishers such as Random House and Harper Collins as well as educational publishers such as Pearson, McGraw Hill and professional publishers like Lexus-Nexus. The company’s main Toronto plant has 300 employees and its market spans across North America.

“We are making some significant investments and growing in 2009. I try not to read too much of the headlines and other doom and gloom that everyone is talking about. We have a positive outlook and most of our publishers seem to have a pretty stable market and demand for their product, at least so far. What we are trying to do is to remain flexible and respond to those [needs] so that we don’t get too far ahead of the curve in terms of the cost and investment‚Ķbut at the same time, leverage some of the productivity and competitiveness that we’ve invested and developed over the last few years. The key focus that we invested over the last year was about $4 million in employee training, productivity improvement programs and information infrastructure. We think that this has set us out to be even more competitive in North America.”

Textbooks remain a financially rewarding book business in Canada. A Statistics Canada 2006 summary suggested that textbooks accounted for 48% of the total $943 million in sales of publishers’ own titles.

With an eye on the economic situation, even smaller scale book printer Houghton Boston, based in Saskatoon, continues to invest in the latest equipment to ensure the highest quality and to offer the latest features and high productivity.

To outsource or not to outsource?

In addition to this year’s economic pressures, the industry also needs to assess its position on outsourcing. China, in particular, continues to have a stronghold on publishing services due to their growing, automated printing market. In contrast to most U.S. publishers, who have opted to retain prepress services domestically in the belief that more complex design and layout tasks are best kept “close to the chest,” China has pursued a substantial percentage of the automated printing business made possible by the ability to work directly from digital files. When any problems linked to automated printing arise, small-scale printers can deal with any problems almost immediately, whereas larger firms may take more time. Nonetheless, large-scale printers are more likely to outsource or sub-source the printing of books to countries like China or India.

“For certain segments, we run fulfillment and distribution services for some of our segments,” says Collinge. “In some of the other segments, publishers have well-developed channels and don’t look to us to do that. We try to integrate more services into our manufacturing operations than in outsourcing.”

As book printing technology continues to evolve at a record pace, so does the pace at which book printers adopt new technologies and processes.

Houghton Boston, for instance, a company of about 35 employees in business since the 1920s, is a Heidelberg shop.

“The oldest press is four years old,” says Scott Laking, general manager at Houghton Boston. The company’s Kodak Prinergy Evo PDF workflow has completely replaced their prepress in 2009 and uses Stochastic printing when required.

“The majority of our customers are repeat customers. I am sure the situation with all book printers is similar to ours; customers are all sensitive to price. Houghton Boston prints quality books with very fast turnaround times‚Ķ[we have] very new assets and the largest complement of bindery equipment in the province, one of the most extensive in the west. This allows quick turn around with many special features such as laminations, special coatings, embossing and foil stamping.”

Friesens Corporation, for instance, uses Presstek’s 52DI digital offset press to print covers for its book and yearbook divisions. One of Canada’s largest hardcover book printers, Friesens publishes books across North America and specializes in colour hardcover and softcover books.

Presstek gives Friesens a way to respond to the demands it has for short-run, high-quality book covers, which cannot always be produced profitably on larger presses.

“One of the significant technology investments of 2008 was more prepress workflow investments in Prinergy systems and more computer-to-plate technologies,” says Collinge of Webcom’s press technology. “Certainly, over the last few years, the ability to automate, streamline and drive costs out of converting our publisher’s digital file into files that are ready to take to our printing presses has improved exponentially. The cycle times and the cost involved in conversion in which it takes a book ready to go to the printing and manufacturing process has been decreased‚ĶThis has lowered the overall cost for our publishers and allowed us to print books in a quicker fashion.”

Several up and coming printing technologies this year include the Océ VarioStream 9210 digital printer. Created specifically for high-volume, speed-intensive single-pass duplex applications for reliable, good quality and digital short runs, Quebecor World has been one of the first companies to adopt the technology.

More specifically, the Océ VarioStream 9210 digital book printing configuration includes a Graphic Arts Controller, Océ PRISMAproduction POD software to provide an efficient workflow and Océ TrueProof software to facilitate convenient online proofing.

Greening the industry

Book printers are also taking aggressive steps to ensure that the dwindling forest resources that go into making their customers’ books are seriously considered.

Houghton Boston, for instance, is FSC certified and has always offered books printed on 100% post-consumer recycled material.

“With the latest technology also comes the most energy efficient equipment, plus reduced make-ready waste,” says Laking.

“Houghton Boston recycles all product waste. We have also focused on many small acts of green. All office printers [are set to] default printing to two sides. We have changed all lighting to energy efficient bulbs and systems and high energy use equipment is set on timers.”

Green Printer, a company based in British Columbia whose printing services clients include Best Western Hotels, the University of British Columbia and Aveda is pioneering high-quality, on-demand runs for self-publishers. The fast growing company prides itself in its affordable prices and waterless printing technology, which virtually eliminates volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the printing process. VOCs are a major pollutant; some have been linked to the deterioration of the earth’s protective ozone layer and, consequently, to climate change.

“We specialize in very high-quality, short and medium-run books,” says Alen Rokolj, vice-president of Green Printer.

“Advances in printing technology over the last five years have allowed very high-end books to be offered at a very reasonable price. We basically cater to self-publishers who really don’t have a huge budget for printing, but still want a really high-quality book. We can, for instance, print 20, 30 or 100 perfectly bound books.”

The green printing company uses Kodak Nexpress for their high-end runs.

“The quality is basically comparable to offset. In some cases, it’s very difficult to tell the difference between Kodak Nexpress and large offset presses.”

“We prefer printing on-demand for environmental reasons. For example, when you have big runs of books, traditionally you would print thousands of books at the same time. In some cases, if you have 20,000 – 30,000 books, what will happen very often is that only a fraction of those books will actually sell. So, you end up recycling 30-50% of the entire run, which goes straight back into pulp. For us, this is really contrary to our philosophy. We encourage all of our clients to print on demand and just as much as they need.

Another big advantage of clients working with us is that they can produce as many books as they need, in an environmentally-friendly way and without any waste. Very often, for example, customers can sell their first 50 books and then we can print them.”
Printing green makes a large dent in the long-term health of our planet. And, increasingly, customers simply expect books to be printed in an environmentally-sensitive way. Given that the pulp and paper industry is the third largest industrial polluter of air, water and land in both Canada and the United States, book manufacturers would benefit to adopt sustainable print practices if they have not already.

Friesens Corporation, for example, has made tremendous milestones in green book printing. In 2003, it printed Canada’s first FSC certified book. A year later, with publisher Raincoast Books, Friesen’s printed Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on 100% post-consumer waste paper. This landmark “green” edition sent a signal for all future Harry Potter books to go “tree free.” In 2006, Friesens estimating went paperless, saving 285,000 pages annually of printing. And, just last year, Friesens opened North America’s most modern efficient and eco-friendly book printing plant complete with a new Web press.

These are impressive achievements for a company that began in 1907 as a small confectionery store and is now one of Canada’s largest independent book manufacturers.

Under the leadership of Curwin Friesen, president and CEO, the company won the National Association for Printing Leadership’s highest management award and in 2007, Deloitte and Touche named the book manufacturer one of “Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies.”

In 2004, the Globe and Mail and Caldwin Partners named Curwin Friesen one of Canada’s “Top 40 under 40,” a list of high achieving business people under the age of 40.

Webcom takes a more balanced industry approach to environmental practices. “The key thing we try to provide to our publishers is balancing our service offerings‚Ķ we span a range of some leading edge environmental products and processes for publishers with needs and interests in those areas through to the ability to turn books around in hours from file rear feed to bound product,” says Collinge.

“We’ve developed a whole line of environmentally-friendly paper called our Legacy publishing papers and there is a whole offering of eco-criteria that goes into this paper.”

Webcom’s Legacy line takes into account maximizing recycled content, ensuring well-managed forests when sourcing virgin content, addressing how paper is processed and protecting ancient or endangered forests.

The line is offered with both the Ancient Forest Friendly endorsement and the Forest Stewardship Council certification.

Raz Godelnik, CEO of ecolibris.net, a green business that works with book readers, publishers, writers, bookstores and others in the book industry to balance out the paper used for books by planting trees, says that the current state of the book printing industry has improved over the past couple of years. Still, there is a lot to be done. Drawing from the U.S. example, he says that, “[the] industry has an annual 12.4 million-ton carbon footprint and still uses around 1.6 million tons of paper (about 30 million trees) on an annual basis. If that sounds bad, prepare for this: these numbers are currently on the rise. Companies should be concerned because going green and lowering their carbon footprint is not only good for the environment, but also for their business – especially with the price tag anticipated for carbon emissions.”

“I believe that putting a price on carbon emissions through cap and trade mechanism will force the industry to go green faster and bolder, as it can’t really afford to add such an extra cost to their cost structure. Increased awareness of both the customers and the industry will also accelerate the process.”

Godelnik also speaks about the unique pressures that come with digital printing, which is often immediately assumed to be more environmentally friendly.

“The challenge lies in finding a way to make sure e-books and digital content – which don’t use trees for the production – are truly better for the environment. This goal would ensure that the transition to digital content and other paperless alternatives in the publishing industry will not be like trading a paper bag for a plastic one.”

The ecolibris.net founder has some last words of advice for book printers or publishers who want to go green.

“People always say, “put it in writing.” Well, that statement couldn’t be any more true when [it] comes to the process of going green. The first piece of advice is to set up an environmental policy with clear and measurable goals. The second piece of advice is to learn from others. Check out what others have done and learn from their experiences. Find out how they made the transition to a more environmentally-sound mandate and strive to mirror their accomplishments. Third, environmental organizations are an excellent resource in a company’s desire to go green. Get assistance from organizations such as Green Press Initiative. They will help you assess the environmental impact of your company and help you change for the better. Finally, find your eco-advantages or how environmental challenges can actually benefit your business and go green – the sooner the better!”

Future trends

What, if any, impact will interest in e-books have on the Canadian book printing industry? While it is true that publishers may face expensive fees in initiating and consolidating a digital program and in trying to get its digital market share up, the initial investment could generate considerable savings down the road, particularly compared with the expense of manufacturing a traditional, hardcover bound book.

Despite Google Book Search’s digitization and archiving of millions of copyrighted titles as well as the Sony Reader and Amazon’s Kindle e-books, with their massive storage capacities, it is too wild of a stretch to predict that the e-book will make the printed book history. As with the early Canadian settlers, people experience a certain sense of satisfaction with portable, tacit paper. Furthermore, in comparison with digital screens, paper is easier on the eyes and is not subject to the whims of Internet connections or battery life.

Still, no matter how you look at it, digital adoption is on the rise. No doubt, the e-book and the technological infrastructure that it demands will impact all areas of the book industry from labour to distribution, order and fulfillment.

For instance, for book-starved consumers, novels on cell phones could be a real blessing. In February, Indigo’s introduction of its Shortcover service to allow the purchase and download of e-books to a smart-phone via a wireless Internet connection will allow e-books to become very accessible to practically anyone that has a mobile phone.

Despite the game-changing nature of e-books, the resiliency and forward-thinking nature of our Canadian book printing decision makers promises that each challenge and technological shift is really, through one angle or another, a tremendous opportunity in the making.