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Case Studies - Cambridge University Press

Cambridge University Press Redefines Out of Print

Background

Cambridge University Press (CUP) was founded by a royal charter granted to the University of Cambridge by King Henry VIII in 1534. It is the oldest printer and publisher in the world, having been operating continuously since 1584, and is one of the largest academic publishers globally. As a university press, Cambridge also has a significant mission to continue to make available books that are relevant and of interest to the academic community, and support the advancement of literature and letters.

A 1997 review of Cambridge Academic sales and stockholding revealed that, of its 18,000 academic SBNs available, more than 8,000 sold fewer than 50 copies per year, and 3500 titles sold fewer than 10 copies. The average title sold 32 units during the year whilst the average number of copies in stock was 120. 1500 new tSBNs were published in a typical year. But 1500 in-demand but slow selling SBNs went OP as stock expired. The value of these discontinued lines was estimated at over a £1 000 000 a year.

To address these issues, in 1997 Cambridge embarked on a major publishing production project based on what was then, a fledgling print on demand technology. The object of the project was to maintain titles in print for as long as they remained in demand, and by doing so provide a better service for customers, and hopefully increase overall title income.

Business Solution

The Cambridge approach was initially based on printing speculatively for stock, as before, but using digital print technology to print in very much smaller quantities than would be viable using conventional printing. Rapid developments in both the technology and infrastructure supporting the digital print program mean it is now possible to support very rapid restocking in numbers as low as one, or even genuine print-to-demand where appropriate.

Books become candidates for the digital program when ongoing annual sales no longer support the costs of conventional reprinting. This number varies according to format, size and price, but can be 300 or fewer paperback annual sales, or 100 or fewer hardback annual sales.

Colour is not yet offered through the program, and there is a length limit (imposed by the binding technology used).

Initial setup of titles for digital printing requires a good quality PDF file – ideally the PDF originally used to print the book. If that is not available, then a scan of a physical copy of the book.

Cambridge set out to ensure that the digital print program was fully integrated within the existing business, finance, and distribution systems. On the other hand, care was taken to ensure that the income and costs of the program were visible, and additional resource was dependent on financial growth. as the program grew in financial terms, The program both stimulated and benefited greatly from the ongoing increase in importance of rich bibliographic data - for use in online discovery services (such as Google Book Search), and in the rapidly growing online sales channels (such as Amazon.com).

Since the early 2000s, all print files for new Cambridge publications have been digitally stored in a consistent format for potential future use, either for digital printing, or for electronic repurposing.

Approach

Initially Cambridge used its digital printing program to keep books in print when they could no longer be kept in print viably using conventional printing. This straightforward work was done directly with Lightning Source.

As the digital print program has developed, completely new publishing programs have emerged which have much more demanding production and set-up requirements. These include publishing new digital paperback versions of low-selling hardbacks, reviving titles from out-of-print, and publishing new titles as digital print and electronic from the go.

The decision was taken in 2002 to work with VCIL (formerly DPS). VCIL were able to offer a wide range of excellent quality and good value typesetting, production and design services that were increasingly required. Over the intervening years VCIL have become an integral part of the digital print and the related ebook workflows of Cambridge University Press.

The “printing file” is sent to VCIL in India, who work to an agreed process: preparing files to fit page templates, changing the imprint page, redesigning the back cover to accept the blurb and barcode, and adding printing metadata. Once complete, the prepared file is sent to the digital printer, Lightning Source.

A proof created by Lightning Source is sent to Cambridge for a quality check and on approval the title’s status on the system is changed to flag that it will be reprinted digitally at Lightning Source. Once conventional stock is exhausted, the digital title is automatically reprinted.

Benefits

“It is no exaggeration to say that DPS (now VCIL) has fulfilled a critical role in enabling us to expand dramatically both our short-run reprinting, as well as our and electronic publishing programs. Since 2004, we have been setting up close to 2000 new POD titles with Lightning Source annually, which has driven an average annual increase of over 20% in our digital program sales. Over the same period we have increase the number of titles in our digital printing program from less than 3000 have increased the than more than quadrupled our number of e-book versions, from fewer than 3000 at the beginning of 2004 to nearly 11000 by January 2008” Rufus Neal, Business Development Manager, Cambridge University Press

The POD programme has delivered significant tangible benefits to Cambridge:

• Reduced costs by removing wasted inventory
• Increased Revenues not just by recovering formerly lost sales but also in creating entirely new revenue streams.
• Enabled important and valuable titles to be kept available to scholars.
• Provided productivity benefits by automating the reprint workflow enabling more titles to benefit from the process.
• Enabled the digital files to be amended to produce files for e-books and files for online partners (netLibrary, eBrary, Coutts, and others)
• Enabled the files to be further utilised for marketing and bibliographic promotion

Cambridge has a huge backlist of legacy titles and therefore there is no shortage of candidates for inclusion in the digital program. Cambridge is now adding over 2000 titles to the digital program each year, of which 55% are new paperbacks.

Since the beginning of the digital program, it has earned Cambridge well over $50 million of new revenues. In 2007 passed a landmark in the production of its 10,000th POD title in a program that now is integral to the press.

About Cambridge University Press

Cambridge University Press has three divisions.

Academic Publishing: Cambridge is one of the world’s largest and most prestigious academic publishers and is acclaimed for its list of journals, textbooks, monographs and practitioner guides, in subjects from medicine and law to literature and classics. Cambridge’s academic publishing includes around 200 journals, 1200 new books each year, and its historic Bibles list.
Cambridge Learning: Cambridge is a global leader in English Language Teaching books and resources and is well established as a publisher of books for schools in the United Kingdom, Australia and Africa.

Cambridge Printing: After four centuries, Cambridge remains at the forefront of the printing industry. An impressive range of products are manufactured on site in Cambridge.