Thorpe
Bowker is known to the industry through its products such as the Weekly
Book Newsletter, Australian Bookseller & Publisher Magazine and
Australian Books in Print. It is the Australian Books in Print (Griffin
Digital also produced the New Zealand Books in Print) where Griffin Digital played
a major role in assisting Thorpe Bowker achieve its goals. "For
Thorpe-Bowker, printing Books In Print with dbooks (now known as Griffin Digital)
meant we could deliver the flexibility, quality and cost savings for which high-quality
digital printing is renowned." Thorpe-Bowker has a unique
approach to the marketing and sales of Australian Books In Print and New Zealand
Books In Print, with both publications sold by advance subscription and then reprinted
on-demand. This approach prompted the company to begin looking at digital printing
as an option. "Our decision to print Books In Print digitally
was all part of a change strategy for the company to better control the volumes
of the book, while minimising costs and time to market," said Andrew Wilkins,
Thorpe- Bowker's Publisher. The two key factors which influenced
Thorpe-Bowker's decision to make the change from traditional offset to digital
was the cost of printing Australian Books In Print and New Zealand Books In Print
(due to the immense page length of each publication) and the inability to control
volumes, with leftover stock or "dead books" frequently stored at the
publishing house's Melbourne site. "Using digital printing gives us
greater flexibility all-round," continued Wilkins. "'The controlled,
shorter runs means that if 20 more orders come in for the books later in the year,
we can produce them on-demand and eliminate storage of dead books." Rating
dbooks (Griffin Digital's) service, Thorpe-Bowker gave the company top marks,
delivering both on price and service. "One of our key
areas of concern when we were selecting a printer was the quality of the binding,
which is a really big job considering the size of Australian Books In Print and
New Zealand Books In Print. However, using traditional hand binding, dbooks did
a terrific job and we are very happy with the outcome." "Overall,
we were very impressed by the quality of the service that dbooks delivered, as
well as the quality of the finished product and their competitive price,"
continued Wilkins.  
The
specifications are: Two cased bound titles (Volume 1 and Volume
2) Finished trim size: 275mm x 195mm Portrait
PLC Cover
prints: Offset 4c CMYK one side only on 130gsm Impress Matt with Matt Celloglaze
Text
prints: Volume 1 = 1464pp, Volume 2 = 1258pp Digital 1c black both sides on 60gsm
Offset
Binding: Cased 2400um boards, Sewn, endpapered, square back with head
and tail bands Images of Australian Books in Print Volumes
1 & 2 reproduced with permission of Ran Schuman, Thorpe
Bowker
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