Publishers need to explore the possibility of digital printing

Anjana Saha, national business and marketing manager, Ricoh India Ltd, who was present at the NDWBF, shared the importance of digital printing in book publishing industry. Print on demand is gradually making inroads in the book publishing industry. “Short-run general books publishing is becoming popular now. Besides, we are targeting the vernacular publishers, where the print runs are small. We are expecting very good business from the regional publishers. For children books, which need lot of colourful high quality images, digital printing is the best solution,” shares Anjana Saha.

Anjana also informed that Ricoh India has recently sold machines to publishers like Navneet Publications, Bharat Law House, Karnataka Law House, Repro India, Manipal Technologies, etc. “Besides, there are many installations at digital printers who have publishers as their main clients,” she said.

“Offset and digital printing will co-exist but demand for digital will increase in multiples for Print on Demand and for offset, it will be stagnant. The future for book publication is inkjet as there is lot of improvement in quality of print, the resolutions have increased and so has the ink quality. Book publishers need to explore the print on demand option as the concept of warehousing is getting diminished with the print-run getting smaller and smaller. Apart from that, they do not necessary have to install a machine at their site but can explore the possibility of going through a service providers or through OEMs,” she concludes.