Over the years, I have found companies much more comfortable with taking “small steps” because they felt they were taking on less risk. Therein lies the major strategy misstep that companies fall prey to in the budgeting process.
I would like to send out a sincere and resounding “THANK YOU!” to my fellow print shop owners. You are probably down the street from me right now, angrily bossing around your minions. Or, you could be mistreating your valued vendors.
Decreasing demand for publication papers in the U.S. is apparently having a counterintuitive result: higher prices. Or, at the least, higher minimum price levels during down markets. There’s a logical explanation, and it doesn’t involve repealing the law of supply and demand.
With so many paper companies in or on the verge of bankruptcy, significant capital investments in existing machines are rare. The most efficient machines today are likely to remain the most efficient for years to come.
That means the industry’s efficiency gains are too meager to counter the impact of rising input costs.
The Department of Justice announced it has reached a settlement with Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster, but will continue to litigate against Apple and two other publishers—Holtzbrinck Publishers and Penguin Group—for conspiring to end eBook retailers’ freedom to compete on price, take control of pricing from eBook retailers and substantially increase the prices that consumers pay for eBooks.
If, like me, you received price increase letters last week from a couple of coated paper manufacturers, you’re probably really frustrated. Is this price increase demand-driven? Of course not! Then why are they doing it?
If you just need to convey a point-A-to-point-B message, feel free to use an inexpensive sheet. But other projects need to do more. They need to gain trust, convey the brand and—especially in this over-communicated world of ours—demand attention.
Once again, we were awakened by a puking dog in our bed. And I said to myself, “How many times do I have to learn this lesson?” When it comes to mistakes or missteps in your work life, how many of them make a second (or third, or fourth) appearance?
I think it’s inevitable that a job will go wrong. Take every precaution imaginable, and stuff still will happen. Everyone makes mistakes. Your Apocalypse Now is coming soon to a customer near you. Prepare for it.
With Conde Nast, Hearst and Meredith launching their own digital newsstand in the form of Next Issue Media, it’s clear that magazine publishers are counting on tablets for future growth. But a new report from Kantar Media suggests publishers will need to upgrade ad offerings in tablet editions to fully exploit the new platform.
There are five attributes that the realms of print and media convergence share. Most printers should find the five attributes familiar, if not downright recognizable, and will agree that print and the world of media convergence have a common future.
