Blackwell offering on-demand book printing

OhmyNews reports: [edited]

Blackwell Bookshops have launched a service for instant book printing, starting with a shop in Charing Cross Road. The Espresso 2 equipment supplied by On Demand Books has been tested at the shop, then moved to Earl's Court for the London Book Fair, then returned to the shop for a continuing service to launch on April 27.

Currently 400,000 titles are available as PDF files to be printed on demand, usually for the same price as normal stock from publishers. The emphasis will be on rare and out of print titles.

At the London Book Fair it was announced that the Lightning Source catalogue will be available through On Demand Books. Lighting Source currently supply short runs for a number of publishers. Blackwell expect more than a million titles to be available later this year.

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Printweek have published an article on the transition from litho to digital in book printing.

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For more on the Espresso Book Machine, click here
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Fame at last!

X1 Directors, Brett Jordan, Tim Lance & George Eckford

PrintWeek reports: [edited]

Print and design company X1 aims to double its turnover to £3.2m by 2010 following its purchase of a B3 Ryobi 524GX press and the acquisition of Jackson Print.

This forms part of an ongoing £1m investment programme, with X1 also planning to increase its digital print portfolio in the coming months.

Tim Lance, sales director of X1, said with turnover for the last financial year at £1.6m, the company had taken the decision to significantly grow its business.

"Our ambition in the next 18 months is to grow our business to a turnover of between £2.9m and £3.2m through a combination of organic growth from our existing customers and the development of new business relationships", he said.

The new Ryobi press, supplied by Apex Digital Graphics, has bolstered X1's litho capacity by nearly 50%. It complements their existing five-unit Ryobi 525GX and increases the company's one-stop shop capacity.

"There are three ways to go as a business. You can sink, you can stagnate or you can soar – and we're going to soar," said Tim.
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