To read the news you’d think printed books were making a major comeback. Barnes & Noble is on track to open 58 new locations by the end of 2024. TikTok influencers are pushing their favorite titles, spurring sudden spikes in sales. And the prevalence of inkjet printing is enabling book printers to respond quickly to this demand.
But for the book printers serving this market, 2024 has not been the comeback year they had hoped for.
“Our sales are down for 2024 still, and according to everyone I’ve spoken to in the industry, they are [down] as well,” observes Doug Gasch, president of Gasch Printing in Odenton, Maryland, reflecting on discussions he had with other book printers at the recent 2024 Book Manufacturers Institute (BMI) Annual Conference.
Doug Gasch (left), president of Gasch Printing, and Joe Fowler, general manager. | Credit: Gasch Printing
This year, book publishers mostly used up the inventories they built up from over-buying during the pandemic, Gasch says, but they haven’t gone on a spending spree as a result.
“It sounds like a lot of these publishers have weaker cash flows now, and they’re being a little more cautious about ordering,” he says, adding that publishers are closely monitoring titles with slow sales with an eye toward discontinuing printing.
Though “The State of the Book Industry 2024” report released earlier this year by BMI and NAPCO Research predicted 2024 would be the year in which stakeholders in book manufacturing saw some stabilization, for all-digital book printers like Gasch Printing, that forecast was premature.
“I’m still bullish on the industry as a whole,” Gasch says. “It’s just a tougher time right now. A slower time.”
Some book printers serving the educational sector have had a different experience in 2024.
“We’re seeing clients increasing orders anywhere from 10%-20%,” reports John Galligan, president of Bradford & Bigelow, in Newburyport, Massachusetts, which offers both offset and digital printing of educational books. Online curriculum has not worked as well as printed materials for children, he notes, particularly in the K-8 grade range, leading to an increase in the printing of educational materials. He points to certain states’ curriculum adoption policies, where state-appointed boards review textbooks and create lists of approved materials. He expects this to lead to a very successful 2025.
“That means there’s going to be a lot of orders,” he says.
The varying experiences of book printers are typical for a sector that’s seen some wild swings over the past couple of decades. From the adverse impact of the Kindle to the printed book boom during the pandemic, book printers have witnessed some extremes, but overall they feel confident about the industry.
“The book is still really strong,” Gasch says. “It’s not going to go anywhere.”
Books are Still Important
Books remain an important part of consumers’ daily lives. According to Statistia, a global data and business intelligence platform, print book unit sales consistently surpass 700 million per year, and print is the most popular book format among U.S. consumers, with 65% of adults having read a print book in the past 12 months.
“The State of the Book Industry 2024” projected this year that annual volume of printed books in the U.S. would be only slightly below 2023 figures. The report cited research from Circana indicating that annual printed book volume in 2023 was 767 million units, about 3% below 2022 levels. Despite this slight decrease, the report noted that the demand for printed books remains strong, and the industry is leveling out after consumer demand for printed reading material skyrocketed during the pandemic.
2024 saw the inventories of books accumulated by publishers during the pandemic years finally dissipate. Both publishers and printers are adjusting their production strategies to avoid overstocking, with a greater emphasis on just-in-time production.
Steve Zweber has seen this firsthand. The vice president of Global Print Manufacturing & Operations for Core Publishing Solutions, a Thomson Reuters company, says publishers learned some lessons from the post-pandemic inventory build-up and have made fundamental changes to their purchasing processes.
“The inventory problem and the pressures it put on those publishers’ bottom lines and overall cost structures [made them] change their purchasing practices and their inventory management strategies,” he notes. “They’re realizing the benefits that come with a shift toward digital printing and shorter-run production. We’re experiencing that: more frequent orders, smaller runs overall.”
Fortunately, Core Publishing Solutions’ 500-employee, 24/5 company is set up for both offset and digital, with six web offset presses, and six inkjet presses between its 1.3-million-sq.-ft. plant in Eagan, Minnesota, and another facility in Argentina.
Digital Printing is Prevalent
Overall in the book industry, digital printing, particularly inkjet, is becoming more prevalent. According to NAPCO Research’s study “The Production Inkjet Application Revolution,” 56% of print buyers surveyed report their books are printed on toner devices, 48% print books with production inkjet, 28% with offset, and 24% print them digitally but are not sure what process. This finding indicates that book producers appear to favor digital printing methods.
“More and more publishers are finally adapting to that model now that the quality’s gotten much better,” observes Gasch, whose $11 million company runs three HP and Canon inkjet presses.
One recent trend that has underscored the value of digital printing is the influence of social media on book buying. Platforms like TikTok — particularly the BookTok community, where users share, rate, and recommend books — have created sudden, high demand for specific titles. When a certain title catches steam, producers need to act quickly to meet demand, something made much easier with digital printing.
“We did have some impact last year from some one-hit wonders,” Gasch says. A sudden need for thousands of books brought in a few weeks of business, he says.
“There’s some good momentum with that, I think,” he says. “It’s definitely a positive for the industry.”
Though Gasch is confident in the future of inkjet printing in the book business, Galligan feels publishers are gravitating toward printers that can offer a combination of offset and digital printing, as well as all types of bindery, from perfect and case binding to saddle stitching and coil binding.
“They want fewer suppliers,” he says. “They want to simplify.”
Having both offset and digital printing lets his company follow up a large offset run with a smaller, digitally printed batch. Occasionally, it works in reverse too, he says.
“Sometimes we start off printing digital quantities, and that book becomes a good seller, so now they want offset quantities,” he says. “We offer that.”
Digital Reduces Risks
Zweber says advancements in digital printing are changing publishers’ printing strategies.
“The publishers aren’t going to place their orders to fully restock their inventories,” he says. “They’re going to maybe place those orders multiple times throughout the year and stay closer to actual demand. They don’t have to take as much risk on some of these first printings or new titles.”
Galligan feels publishers prefer working with printers that are focused 100% on the book market, like Bradford & Bigelow, and not allocating staff and resources to the magazine, catalog, or financial markets. But one of the biggest trends, he notes, is that today’s publishers want printers that can offer warehousing and distribution services, “to eliminate the economically wasteful transportation costs and delays.”
Gasch echoes that perspective. “You have to be a full-cycle partner with your publisher: printing and distribution,” he says. Though his company provides warehousing and distribution, he acknowledges it needs to strengthen its focus on distribution.
With its strong warehousing and distribution experience, Core Publishing Solutions is attractive to publishers.
“The benefit for the publishers obviously is they don’t have the additional transportation costs and added lead times of moving the inventory from the book manufacturer to the warehouse,” Zweber says. “We’re also located centrally Midwest, and that’s advantageous to getting products to the end customer.”
It satisfies publishers’ increasing focus on sustainability and reducing their carbon footprint. Publishers are requiring book printers to source paper sustainably, make recycling commitments, and more. These requirements are showing up in RFPs, making them more time consuming, Zweber notes.
“When responding to RFPs, it’s becoming a significant portion of that process,” he says.
To get the business, printers must comply.
“Forty percent of our power comes from solar,” Galligan remarks, adding that his company recycles all paper that is not used in the finished products.
The Offshoring Threat
This push for more eco-friendly practices and local production can help U.S. book printers combat the threat presented by offshoring book printing to China — which has been considered a scourge of the industry. The growing acceptance of inkjet technology has also helped keep more book printing in the U.S. But while publishers may talk about their interest in local production, Gasch is skeptical.
“They talk a big game about onshoring,” he says — but he’s still seeing plenty of offshoring. “It’s so frustrating.”
Zweber has seen this too, but feels it’s a short-term trend due to the growth of digital printing.
“The benefits of shorter print runs and lower inventories are offsetting the advantages to printing larger quantities overseas,” he says.
Another frustration book printers face is the “almost impossible” task of finding skilled labor, Gasch says. Like many commercial printers, his company has invested heavily in new equipment and automation to add efficiency and improve productivity with fewer employees.
“You have to keep investing in technology or you’re just going to be dead in the water,” Gasch says. After a pre-COVID investment of $4.5 million in new technology, he plans to invest millions again over the next 18 months.
“It you don’t invest in automation, you fall behind,” echoes Galligan, noting his company’s investments in robotics, palletizers, and other automation.
Core Publishing has also incorporated collaborative robots to handle repetitive work like stacking boxed books. Zweber says they can be implemented quickly; they use advanced vision systems, sensors and AI to replace hard-coded programming; and they have great safety features that react in real-time.
“It’s been a huge success,” he says.
The Challenge From Digital Content
As a printer of educational books, Bradford & Bigelow has followed the educational industry’s attempts to move into digital content and its eventual realization that printed materials are better for learning and retention of information. Though “The State of the Book Industry 2024” says this has led to a hybrid approach that includes both digital and printed academic content, Galligan doesn’t see a threat from online educational materials due to the preference for print among students.
“We have some publishers who were all online three or four years ago, and then they said to us, ‘You know what? We need to have a printed version.’ They’re saying not everybody wants online [materials],” he observes. “We don’t see print going down.”
His optimism is common among his peers. According to the “PRINTING United Alliance State of the Industry Update Second Quarter 2024” (sponsored by Canon U.S.A.), printers expect books to grow between 2.1%-6.4% compounded annually during the next three years.
“Overall, I am bullish,” Gasch says. “We have invested heavily in technology and management this year, and we expect to invest in some capital equipment in the next 18 months. It’s a little bit of a frustrating period right now just because it seems slower, but I would expect that to pass.
“I’m kind of looking forward to 2025,” he concludes. “I’m hoping that will be more of a fresh start.”
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