News
Printers to pass on paper price rises
05.11.09 | Victoria Gallagher and Benedicte Page
Printers have warned publishers they can no longer absorb rising printing costs in the face of an impending price increase of 8% in paper early next year.
The rise is expected to affect publishers in early 2010. Michael Johnson, chief executive of the British Printing Industry Federation, believed it was due to weakened demand and over-capacity in the paper sector. Over the last year printers have experienced paper price hikes of between 7% and 12%. In 2007 and 2008 the rises were between 2% and 4%.
Johnson said printers had not passed on the increases to publishers. However, he warned: "It is unfair. We have been absorbing these prices and we can't hold it any longer."
The rise comes as increasingly short print runs have led to publishers using UK printers because of their ability to turn around orders quickly.
Publishers had been using printers in the Far East to print many of their titles because of cheaper prices on longer print runs. However, publishers said retailers were ordering fewer books more often. As a consequence, books needed on short notice have had to be printed by UK printers.
Kate McFarlan, managing director of printer Clays, said: "Print runs have been coming down gradually over many years. The recession only accelerated a trend that was already there." She estimated that runs fell by 20% over the last 18 months.
Richard Charkin, executive director at Bloomsbury, said: "It is true that print runs are coming down. We print to the number of copies we have on subscription. Retailers are ordering later, which is making it harder."
Nigel Marsh, production director at Faber, added: "Retailers are less willing to subscribe to a book upfront. They want to see how it performs and then reorder. It has a knock-on effect on us. We print fewer copies first time and then reprint. Printers have had to organise themselves so that they have the capacity to reprint within three to five days."
Comments on this article
By Devaki Khanna
Will the rising cost of paper be the tipping point for e-publishing, the subscription model and print on demand?05 Nov 09 15:49
By David
"weakened demand and over-capacity in the paper sector" Er - shouldn't that mean the price goes down?05 Nov 09 17:42
By Adam Powell
David, I may only have scraped a pass in Economics at school but those were my thoughts too...06 Nov 09 15:51
