Our clients know us and turn to us as a leader in offset publication work, especially saddle-stitched books.
Yet in my experience, digitally printed stitched books are often dismissed as a viable alternative by printers accustomed to offset.
Digitally Printed Saddle-Stitched Books - a New Revenue Opportunity
One reason, without getting into a long digital vs. offset comparison, is that the difference in quality used to be substantial. Digital printing, often inferior in quality, was easy to spot with the naked eye.
In the beginning, this set up a resistance to digital printing for high-end jobs.
Today, technology has improved.
Digital printers are compatible with thousands of substrates. Software and workflows are better and more collaborative. Coatings are available. Differences between digital and offset can be impossible to spot without looking through a loupe.
Practically speaking, digitally printed books today are acceptable to clients who used to be “offset only.”
There are also other reasons why your clients will come to love digital saddle-stitched books:
- Rapid turnaround—print, collate, stitch and 3-side trim all in one pass.
- Appearance—our “square bind” technology keeps books lying flat so they don’t look like they came off a copier. [image below]
- Variable data capability
- Can do very low volumes
- Better pricing than offset on short runs up to about 750 copies
- Our use of G7 printing methodology guarantees a color match and consistency from book to book.
As a result, clients are finding that digitally printed books are frequently the wiser choice.
Puffy books on left were produced on a copier. Books on the right produced here at Western Trade Printing using our "square bind" technology.
Our digital press and booklet maker is second to none, and equips us to pass along significant, aggressive cost savings.
In turn, this equips you to go after new, profitable booklet opportunities that you may not have considered. And it fattens profit margins on short-run stitched books you might currently be doing via offset.
For clients that are growing, short-run books can be a prelude to bigger quantities of saddle stitched books later on.
If you want a price on your next short-run saddle-stitched booklet, call me direct with your book specs at 559-251-8595 ext. 411.
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