The Bookseller.com

2nd December 2008

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Francis Frith collection makes on-demand leap

13.06.08 Jo Young

Photographic publisher and archivist the Francis Frith Collection is to move to digital print on demand (p.o.d.) for all its books by the end of the year.

The firm, which has 800 local history titles on its list, plans to begin selling all its titles in p.o.d. format by the beginning of 2009 in response to the “changes in the book market and the improvement in colour printing on demand”. It is also finding it increasingly uneconomical to store large amounts of stock for which it has a slow but steady sell-through.

“Printing on demand seems to be the way that the business is going generally, and for us the attraction is that it will save us money on printing and storage costs,” said Julia Skinner of the Francis Frith Collection. “We keep our backlist in print because of how the demand for local interest books works, so when you have to print at least 1,000 at once, the warehouse costs of keeping those books in circulation are significant. The move to digital printing will mean that we can keep all 800 titles ‘in print’ and can print on demand in small quantities whenever a title is required by a customer.”

The books will be subject to a minimum order of 10 copies at a time, and because of the higher costs of production, the trade discounts available will be smaller. The company aims to clear all its existing litho-printed stock by the end of November by offering discounts of 50% and over to the trade. “I understand that the discount on offer will be negotiated on an ad-hoc basis based on the quantities of books ordered,” Skinner said.

Francis Frith will continue to publish its range of large-format, full-colour coffee table books, such as Glorious Britain, and new titles planned for 2009 include a book of customers’ memories prompted by the photographs in the archive, due in the spring. 

Books POD Jo Young Francis Frith Collection