Background

The Digital Book and Manual Printing Opportunity: Market Analysis and Forecast (INTERQUEST, 2005) was based on an in-depth survey of leading North American and European book and manual printers and publishers. Its purpose was to review and assess the overall state of the market for digital book and manual printing and examine related technology developments. The study identified three key segments where digital printing was having the greatest impact: trade, education, and professional books. Over the past few years, with advances in color technology, a fourth segment (photo books) has emerged as a high-growth segment for digital printing. This study focuses on these, the largest and fastest growing sectors of the book market for digital printing.

Currently most front-list titles are still produced conventionally due to the run lengths involved. The economics of digital printing instead steer the choice in the direction of back-list titles and other instances which clearly call for on-demand or short-run production. Digital printing is, however, finding relevancy for some front-list books—usually for relatively low-volume titles which are not subject to excessive price constraints, which describes many of the books we examine in this study.

Methodology

In addressing these and other questions, the study focuses on digital book printing for trade, education, professional, and photo books, including developing trends and issues that are influencing the adoption and use of digital printing systems. The study is based on in-depth interviews with 60 printers and publishers conducted in 2007.