In my quest to make sense of the printing industry's future and what it holds for all of us, I recently attended the Digital Book Printing Forum in New York City. I have to say it was a day well spent. The conference gave me a good idea of what direction binderies should be heading in. Though I came out of the conference without clear cut answers (is there such a thing?) I did get a solid feel for how the industry has been transformed.

As we all know, digital printing has taken hold in a way we couldn't have imagined five or ten years ago. Comparing digital and offset printing from the point of view of an ordinary consumer, I feel they're of equal quality. As the publishing industry heads toward digital in order to minimize stocking and warehousing costs, they are counting on the increasing improvement of digital technology, both toner and ink-jet. Some interesting statistics I dug up about this growing sector: In 2009, 58 percent of digital printers increased their profit/revenue, while just more than 31 percent of non-digital providers did. In addition, the digital printing and packaging market is estimated to expand 182 percent through 2014.

As I toured the exhibit floor, it sometimes hardly seemed like we were in the book industry. Everywhere there were e-book solutions, self publishing solutions (Lulu.com, Blurb.com). Printers were pushing cross-media: print, web, and e-publishing. Services that convert magazines into electronic format for web and mobile device reading were everywhere. And there were traditional printers who print and binders who bind.

The Growth of the Mid-sized Run Sector?
Aside from pulling together all the different software platforms, one of the major challenges of digital printing is how to properly incorporate outside binding and finishing companies. Binding and finishing solutions are geared for the very short run and long run sectors, but there is no efficient binding operation for the middle. As sheet sizes grow in digital, could we see middle of the run work come back to signature form? It's hard to say, but it's something to think about and watch for in the future.

How Postpress Companies Can Adapt
As digital printing services continue to broaden, binderies that can handle this type of work will become increasingly valuable. To integrate into the digital printing industry, Seaboard Bindery and other binderies and finishing companies will have to add machines that:

1. Require little to no makeready
2. Are simple to operate
3. Will adjust from one variable book to another electronically

Laminating Digitally Printed Books
Digitally-produced covers can also be hard to laminate depending on the press and whether it uses ink or toner. Standard films aren't designed to adhere to many of the inks and toners, but more aggressive adhesive films make for a firmer bond.

At Seaboard Bindery, we use an aggressive adhesive laminating film that works well on digitally-printed pieces. Click here to learn more about our single- and double-sided laminating services.