Interquest announces new in-depth study of digital book printing in North America

Interquest, a leading market and technology research and consulting firm serving the digital printing and publishing industry, has released a comprehensive new study of digital book printing in North America. The report complements and extends its previous studies of the role of digital printing in the book publishing market. “Digital book printing is playing an increasingly important role in book manufacturing for North American publishers in all sectors of the market,” said Gilles Biscos, President of Interquest. “Publishers are keen to cut costs in a generally flat market, and digital printing offers numerous ways for them to do that. Book printers have aggressively adopted the technology in order to help their customers better manage the supply chain, as well as tap new sources of revenue such as long-tail sales of back-list titles.”
The study is based on: 40 in-depth telephone surveys with leading book printers in North America who collectively produce over 1.5 billion books per year; in-depth interviews with 20 large and medium-sized publishers; an Internet survey of 80 production and manufacturing managers from book publishing firms in Canada and the U.S.; input from interviews with printing equipment, finishing and paper vendors; and findings from other research and work related to digital production printing recently conducted by Interquest. The study assesses the overall book market in North America as well as the use of digital printing for producing books. This includes adoption, applications and challenges, key players, streamlining of the supply chain, the growth of POD, the evolution of colour digital printing, the migration from toner to inkjet imaging, book customization and personalization, distribute-and-print opportunities, and the evolution of run lengths. In addition to detailed survey findings, the study also includes market size forecasts from 2015 to 2020.
“The book market is in better shape than a few years ago, eBook growth has tapered, and printed-book volume has increased for two years running,” Biscos added. “At the same time, we have yet to see robust adoption of digital printing by major trade publishers. Digital book printing with inkjet, which has grown enormously, is still in the hands of large printers – and although print runs continue to decline, much of the addressable market is still beyond the capabilities of digital equipment. We continue to forecast healthy growth for digital volume in the book market, but a number of factors we detail in the report will need to fall into place in the coming years.”
Digital Book Printing in North America: Market Analysis & Forecast (2015-2020) is immediately available. Hard-copy or PDF licensing of the over 300-page report, which includes more than 200 exhibits illustrating and highlighting key findings of the research, can be ordered through the company’s website: www.inter-quest.com/reports.php. A companion report, Digital Book Printing in Europe: Market Analysis & Forecast (2015-2020) is also available.