Here's Why Attending the 4th Annual Print Buyers Conference
Will Save Your Firm Money

Labels: printing digital print publishing barcasting new media

Patrick Henry Says:
August 6th, 2008 at 3:21 pm

How about a webinar featuring a panel of PrintPlanet’s most knowledgeable regular posters on press-related topics? Gordon Pritchard and Offset Guy come immediately to mind, and there are others. Give them some provocative talking points, and they will do the rest. I volunteer to moderate.

PrintPlanet is a tremendous resource. I wrote about it years ago, not long after Dave Mainwaring launched it, and its forums have been gems of inside information ever since. PrintPlanet is the place to go for the kinds of straight talk and unvarnished opinions that can’t get an airing anywhere else in the graphic arts trade media. A press-focused webinar will encourage other press operators to add their voices as well.

From: Ivan Hoffman

Publishers and authors alike (and other parties with "copyright interests") need to be aware that this is only a settlement *among the publisher-author classes and Google*. The settlement itself leaves some parties apparently uncovered, such as perhaps some illustrators for example, and significantly, leaves authors and publishers to resolve many questions between them that are contractual in nature. Given that you are all using or have signed agreements that were drafted before this settlement including author-publisher agreements as well as illustrator agreements and perhaps other agreements, it is likely that those agreements need to be substantially revised to cover issues presented by this settlement. These should all be reviewed by an experienced publishing attorney to have them comply with the issues left unresolved by the settlement and as to which, the settlement agreement expressly refers the parties to their respective agreements.


In this regard, I have written a brief overview of some of the contractual problems presented by the settlement and you can read about these at http://www.ivanhoffman.com/settlement.html


**Please feel free to forward this notice to your associates and colleagues if you feel they may be interested in this.** Thanks.


This posting and any articles referred to in this posting are not legal advice and are not intended as legal advice. This posting and any articles referred to in this posting are intended to provide only general, non-specific legal information. This posting and any articles referred to in this posting do not create any attorney client relationship and are not a solicitation.


If you no longer wish to receive these educational mailings from me, you have the right to be taken off my list by simply replying to *me* (DO NOT REPLY TO "ALL") and asking not to receive such further mailings from me and I shall be happy to comply. If you are receiving this posting as a member of any other list, you should contact the administrator of that list.



IVAN HOFFMAN, B.A., J.D. Attorney at Law Lawyering With Integrity. Proudly in my 35th year of practice. Entertainment Law, Publishing and Writing Law, Copyrights, Trademarks, Internet Law, Web Design Law, Intellectual Property Law. *A Winner of 8 Prestigious Web Site Awards.* http://www.ivanhoffman.com

Labels: copyright, newspaper printing digital print publishing

# posted by Dave_Mainwaring @ Monday, November 10, 2008 0 comments

From: MWBOOKREVW@aol.com
Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2008
Subject: Jim Cox Report: November 2008

Dear Friends & Family:

Some people write and publish because they seek to make money at it.
Others write and publish because they have a cause to promote.
Personally, I've always felt that it was the best of all possible
worlds if I could do what I wanted to do while improving the world a
bit and supporting my family at the same time.

I'm turning 66 on November 6th and have now been at this business of
being editor-in-chief of the Midwest Book Review for what amounts to
half of my life time. Therefore I count myself among the truly
fortunate in having been able to do something that I really have
enjoyed doing on a daily basis for a living, and that this work is
adequate to my creative and practical needs, and, judging from the
responses of what now has cumulatively amounted to thousands of men
and women over the last three decades of my life, has been generally
perceived as being of genuine service to aspiring authors, novice
publishers, conscientious librarians, struggling booksellers, and
grateful members of the reading public.

I'm now semi-retired with my daughter and her two stalwart associate
editors taking over more and more of the daily chores of running the
Midwest Book Review. I've even received my first Social Security
check this past month. Nevertheless, I will continue in my role as
Editor-in-Chief for as many years as I have the health to permit it.
It's clear to me now that I will always have the interest and the
motivation to do so. I find that life as the editor-in-chief of the
Midwest Book Review -- even in these troubled times -- is a good one.

But enough of my personal musings. You folk who read the "Jim Cox
Report" are really looking for writing and publishing "tips, tricks &
techniques" to help you accomplish your own literary and professional
goals in the wonderful world of publishing.

I've followed a recent discussion thread about how to deal with malicious
reviews when they are posted on Amazon.com with great interest. I
have some very
firm opinions about the Amazon review system. These opinions are based upon my
being among the first to post reviews on Amazon back when Amazon
originally made it
possible to do so. The practice of posting reviews on Amazon now stretches over
many years and includes tens of thousands of reviews from the Midwest Book
Review and our freelance publicists.

Opinion #1: The five star system is completely arbitrary, and because it is,
the value of such a system is both defective and dysfunctional. A quicky
rating system, whether in the form of stars, thumbs up or down, or any of the
other commonly employed symbols, actually serves as a disservice to
authors and
publishers because it acts as a kind of visual short-cut for the public so
that they don't have to read through the reviews themselves to determine
whether the reviewers are competently providing a positive or negative
recommendation. Unfortunately Amazon requires their stars, therefore
almost all of our
reviews get five of them on the basis of the books in question being able to
survive our selection process and receiving positive recommendations from
their assigned reviewers.

Opinion #2: Posters of reviewers are not held to any kind of standard with
respect to competence or civility. This is reflected in how so many positive
reviews and so many negative reviews are presented without a foundation of
cited justifications. All too often reviewers confuse nastiness with
competency
in panning a book, with others confusing platitudes with justifiable (and
justified) praise. Therefore anyone who relies on reviews as part of their own
book selection process should remember that reviewers, like authors and
publishers, fall into three basic categories: The Good, The Bad, and
The Mediocre.

Opinion #3: There simply are not enough places where authors and publishers
operating with limited budgetary resources can present their books to large
masses of the reading public -- especially in the sheer numbers that
Amazon can
turn out -- and therefore those authors and publishers of limited means must
invest in time and effort what they lack in financial capital to take
advantage of Amazon as a marketing tool to bring their titles to the
attention of
customers. Simply boycotting Amazon is ultimately self-defeating as a
marketing strategy for most authors and publishers.

As to how to handle a truly nasty review? My advice is to drown it out with
positive reviews. Take advantage of Amazon blogs, and all manner of
other online
guerrilla marketing strategies and techniques. Among those remember to include
utilizing the "Other Reviewers" database housed and maintained on the
Midwest Book
Review website at _http://www.midwestbookreview.com_
(<http://www.midwestbookreview.com>http://www.midwestbookreview.com)

Incidentally, this "Other Reviewers" section of my website includes all of
those MBR freelance and volunteer reviewers that have book review websites of
their own and who utilize the Midwest Book Review as a secondary forum for the
purpose of expanding the readership of their reviews.

Finally, I want to close with what I feel is the central and critically
important role of the book reviewer. A book reviewer should have as his or her
"mission statement" the task of helping writers to write better, publishers to
publish more effectively, bookstores and libraries to stock their shelves more
successfully, and readers to read with greater satisfaction.

Now here are some reviews of the latest 'how to' books for writers
and publishers to have recently crossed my desk:

The Writing/Publishing Shelf

A Book Inside
Carol Denbow
Plain & Simple Books
PO Box 1506, North Bend, OR 97459
<http://www.BooksByDenbow.Weebly.com>www.BooksByDenbow.Weebly.com
9780615199245, $18.95, www.amazon.com

It seems that every season there are more and more 'how to' books
being published for aspiring writers yearning to be published. One of
the latest is also one of the best. "A Book Inside: How To Write,
Publish, And Sell Your Story" is a succinct 104-page compendium
packed from cover to cover with practical, real-world information,
strategies and techniques dealing with the necessity for completing a
saleable manuscript, compiling its pages into book form, identifying
and selecting an appropriate publishing option, selling the book in
traditional and non-traditional markets, and publicizing, promoting,
and marketing the book without significant capital expense. Carol
Denbow writes with a particular, experienced-based expertise as the
author of three books and the editor of nine websites including 'A
Book Inside' online. Especially appropriate for, and recommended to,
the novice author needing to master the 'learning curve' for become a
successfully published author in today's highly competitive
marketplace, "A Book Inside" is a welcome and highly recommended
addition to personal and professional Writing/Publishing reference shelves.

Writer's Block Busters
Velina Hasu Houston
Smith & Kraus, Inc.
PO Box 127, Lyme NH 03768
9781575255972, $17.95, <http://www.smithandkraus.com>www.smithandkraus.com

'Writer's Block' is the term used to describe the condition of being
unable to come up with any ideas -- and well articulated ideas are
the core source of any professional writer's livelihood! Drawing upon
her many years of experience and expertise, Velina Hasu Houston
(author of more than 20 plays, and who is the Professor of Theatre,
Director of Dramatic Writing, Resident Playwright, and Associate Dean
of Faculty at the University of Southern California School of
Theatre) offers "Writer's Block Busters: 101 Exercises To Clear The
Deadwood And Make Room For Flights Of Fancy". This compendium of
succinct 'things to do' will break through this often encountered
author's nemesis and trigger the flow of creative ideas. Superbly
organized and thoroughly 'user friendly' in form and format,
"Writer's Block Busters" should be considered a high priority
addition to the reference shelf of anyone seeking to make their
living through the written word.

Time To Write
Frank Milligan
Quill Driver Books
1254 Commerce Avenue, Sanger, CA 93657
9781884956768, $16.95,
<http://www.quilldriverbooks.com>www.quilldriverbooks.com

As we grow older, one of the best ways to create an enduring legacy
for future generations is to record in writing our own life stories,
our experiences, observations, values, the products of our
imaginations and our perspectives. Frank Milligan draws upon his
experience and expertise in publishing fiction and nonfiction, as
well as teaching creative writing and business writing in "Time To
Write: Discovering The Writer Within After 50", a comprehensive and
'user friendly' instruction guide that will take aspiring older
writers with an initial concept or idea and walk them through each
stage to crating a finished, ready-to-publish manuscript. "Time To
Write" is a 304-page compendium of practical tips, techniques,
insights and shortcuts that will enable the reader's writing, talent,
desire and drive to crate a written document with a minimum of
distraction. Although specifically intended for older readers, "Time
To Write" has a great deal of value for younger writers seeking to
put their own ideas and stories down in a publishable form.

Success
Maralyn D. Hill & Brenda C. Hill
Infinity Publishing.com
1094 New Dehaven Street, #100, West Conshohocken, PA 19428-2713
6322 South Sky Court, Gilbert, AZ 85298 (author)
0741448483, $14.95, <http://www.BooksByHills.com>www.BooksByHills.com

It isn't necessary reinvent any wheels when it comes to the writing
and publishing of books. Not when there are so many experts in the
field who have produced so many notable, practical, informative,
reality-based instructional guides for aspiring authors seeking to be
published, and novice publishers seeking to produce commercially
viable works in the highly competitive marketplace. Expertly
co-authored by Maralyn and Brenda Hill "Success: Your Path To A
Successful Book" is a combination seminary and do-it-yourself
workshop that covers cogent information on writing, marketing, and
publishing. Of special note setting "Success: Your Path To A
Successful Book" apart from other instruction manuals are the
sections concerning journaling, writing in tandem, and understanding
target markets with respect to book sales. The section focusing
specifically on publishing covers agents, traditional publishing,
print-on-demand options, ebooks, and the 'vanity presses'. Enhanced
for beginners with additional material dealing with contact
information and experience based tips by Maralyn and Brenda,
"Success: Your Path To A Successful Book" features workbook pages for
notes and notations by the reader. "Success: Your Path To A
Successful Book" is a thoroughly 'user friendly' and strongly
recommended addition to personal and community library
Writing/Publishing reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

The Autobiographer's Handbook
Jennifer Traig
Holt Paperbacks
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
9780805087130, $15.00, <http://www.henryholt.com>www.henryholt.com

It has been said that everyone has one good book in them. "The
Autobiographer's Handbook: The 826 National Guide to Writing Your
Memoir" is a collection of tips and advice from masterful writers on
putting down one's life story onto paper, and in a format that would
be appealing to read for your audiences. A basic writing course with
a focus on memoirs, "The Autobiographer's Handbook" is a must for
someone who wants the world to read their story.

The Art of The Personal Letter
Margaret Shepherd
Broadway Books
1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019
9780767928274, $16.00, <http://www.randomhouse.com>www.randomhouse.com

The personal letter is a lost art in this day of quick e-mails and
instant messaging. "The Art of the Personal Letter: A Guide to the
Connecting Through the Written Word" is a guide to bringing back this
lost skill and putting it to its best use, and doing what the
internet can't do, provide personality and feeling through the words.
With advice and tips to making one's letter something to be cherished
and loved, "The Art of the Personal Letter" shows that snail mail
isn't dead yet
and still has quite the value in the world of fast communication.

--
{snipped by Dave Mainwaring}

All of the previous issues of the "Jim Cox Report" are archived on
the Midwest Book Review website. If you'd like to receive the "Jim
Cox Report" directly (and for free), just send me an email asking to
be signed up for it.

So until next time, goodbye, good luck, and good reading!

Jim Cox
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive, Oregon, WI, 53575
<http://www.midwestbookreview.com>http://www.midwestbookreview.com

--
My thanks to Jim Cox for permission to share his reviews on the blog.

Dave Mainwaring

Our thanks to Jim Cox for his permission the share his reviews.
Dave Mainwaring
-----------------
The wonderful world of publishing continues to evolve. Some of the changes are due to technological advances, some are the result of an increasingly grim economic environment, still others seem to be the end product of a combination of technology and economics.

One case in point is how an increasing number of publishers are switching from a print catalog of their titles to an online catalog of their books. A few publishers have now replaced snail-mail submitted Reviewer Request Check List forms with on online form for which reviewers are provided with a special link to access it.

While there remains an abundances of snail-mail publicity releases, more and more PRs are going out as emails. This seems especially true among freelance publicists.

Follow-up contacts to ascertain the review status of books submitted are currently split fairly evenly between telephone calls and emails.

I see a distinct trend toward substituting publishing industry traditionally printed materials (catalogs, letters, publicity releases) with electronic versions of these once mainstays of book review solicitations.

Some publishing houses have asked me to send our tear sheets (copies of the reviews we do) to them via email. Apparently it's a time saver for them at their end because they can just do a simple "copy & paste" into their databases (and do email notifications to their authors) without having to first having to type in the review manually from a physical tear sheet.

All of these changes and the trends they represent are less than ten years old. This past decade in which the publishing industry has been transformed in so many major and minor ways with the advent and advance of computer technology.

Sometimes it all makes me feel me feel my age! I began in an era of electric typewriters and the Rolledex. An era of filing cabinets and rotary phones and three-by-five index cards.

But there is an upside to all these newfangled ways of conducting a book review operation. Back in the days of typewriters and rolledexs, I did business with approximately 175 publishers (mostly the New York houses and the major university presses, with a smattering of small presses and a rare appearance of a self-published author). Today the number of publishers I deal with exceeds 1600 publishers. The bulk of these being self-published authors of one kind or another, with another 60 or so being publishers from other countries.

Only the Internet could make possible our reviewing books published in India, England, Ireland, Japan, Australia, etc. in the numbers that we do now These folks send us email PRs to which I provide an email response. They snail-mail me their book(s). When reviewed I email them an electronic version of our publisher notification letter (which includes a copy of the review).

None of that was possible just a decade earlier. Now it's fairly commonplace. Every month within the pages of one or more of our book review publications there will be reviews of titles published in other countries. Sometimes these reviews include snail-mail addresses overseas, sometimes just the publisher's website address, occasionally the contact information will be that of an American-based distributer.

That's why one of the trends I see in the publishing industry is that of globalization. Not just in the production of books (like expensive coffee-table art books being printed in South Korea) but in the marketplace that makes these books known to and available to an American citizenry, as well as readers anywhere else in the world.

What prompted all this is my having just received two beautiful (and beautifully published) Chinese/English bilingual architectural books from a publisher in mainland China. These are the first from this particular publisher -- who found the Midwest Book Review website on the Internet, then sent me a PR e-mail asking if I was interested, and to which I sent an e-mail response inviting the submission. A couple of weeks later they arrived in our mail room.

That's publishing industry globalization in action!

Now here are my opinions and assessments with respect to the new 'how to' titles for authors and publishers to have crossed my desk this past month.

The Writing/Publishing Shelf

Juicy Pens, Thirsty Paper
SARK
Three Rivers Press
c/o The Crown Publishing Group
1745 Broadway, 17th floor, New York, NY 10019
9780307341709, $18.95, www.crownpublishing.com, 1-888-523-9292

Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy is a personal growth teacher, an artist, an inspiration speaker, a bestselling author, and under the pen name SARK has written and compiled "Juicy Pens, Thirsty paper: Gifting The World With Your Words And Stories And Creating The Time And Energy To Actually Do It", a compendium of creative games and techniques that aspiring writers will find to be invaluable in the practice of their chosen craft. There are any number of excellent 'how to' books on how to write better, more effectively, and even more profitably. The unique focus of "Juicy Pens, Thirsty Paper" is an emphasis of practical 'how to' exercises to generate ideas, become inspired by people and things, make time to write within the context of a busy schedule, deal with writer's block and 'bad writing blues', -- even tips on getting published. Enhanced with personal anecdotes, uplifting quotes, interviews with artists, and more, "Juicy Pens, Thirsty Paper" is a welcome and recommended read for all novice authors and holds a great deal of benefit for experienced writers as well.

The Half-Known World
Robert Boswell
Graywolf Press
2402 University Avenue, Suite 203, Saint Paul, MN 55114
9781555975043, $15.00, www.graywolfpress.org

Writing fiction requires a combination of expertise, talent, experience, and imagination. In "The Half-Known World: On Writing Fiction", Robert Boswell (the published author of five novels and an instructor in creative writing at the New Mexico State University, the University of Houston, and in the Warren Wilson MFA program) draws upon his more than twenty years of personal experience and earned expertise to compile nine compelling informed and informative essays on the craft issues facing every literary writer and author. Comprising this extraordinary compendium of observation, insights and advice are Process and Paradigm; Narrative Spandrels; On Omniscience; Urban Legends, Pornography, and Literary Fiction; The Alternate Universe; Politics and Art in the Novel; Private eye Point of View; You Must Change Your Life; and the title piece, The Half-Known World. Enhanced with a two and a half page listing of referenced works at the end, "The Half-Known World" will prove to be a fascinating and educative read for anyone who aspires to literary success as a writer of deftly crafted fiction.

The Power of the Darkside
Pamela Jaye Smith
Michael Wiese Producations
3940 Laurel Canyon Blvd., Suite 1111
9781932907438, $22.95, www.mwp.com

A world where everything goes according to plan isn't terribly interesting at all; a good antagonist is essential to a great story. "The Power of the Darkside" is a guide for screenwriters who want to craft a truly memorable and believable villain, someone viewers will talk about as much as they talk about the hero. And a good hero, of course, needs an excellent villain. Sound and wise in its advice on the shadier side of the script, "The Power of the Darkside" is a must for aspiring writers and for community library collections.

Now for some Q&A from the Midwest Book Review email box:

In a message dated 1/30/2008 9:51:03 A.M. Central Standard Time, Jodi5565@aol.com writes:

Dear Mr. Cox:

Several books I've read about writing covers and queries recommend comparing my manuscripts to similar, successful, published books. How can I find statistics about how successful a comparison book was for its publisher? I wouldn't want to compare my manuscript to a title that didn't sell well. Also, does the comparison book need to be published by the publisher to whom the cover or query is addressed? This would mean I'd need to find a comparison book per publisher. The cover or query is supposed to be limited to one page, but when I include a comparison paragraph I have trouble keeping the letter to one page. Is the comparison a commonly expected part of a cover or query, or is it optional? Thank you for reading my questions and for any advice you can offer.

- Jodi L. Daly

Dear Jodi:

That kind of information is usually considered proprietary by publishers and usual not available to casual inquiries by others. Your best bet would be to try and determine how a particular book did in the marketplace by looking at its ranking on Amazon.com

With respect to comparing your book with other successful titles by other authors in your promotional materials, I wouldn't do it. Leave such comparisons to book reviewers and literary critics.

Jim Cox
Midwest Book Review

In a message dated 2/11/2008 1:27:23 P.M. Central Standard Time, aeonix1@mac.com writes:

I checked Amazon, and I can't see where this occurs. Is this one of
the MBR publications? If so, it would make sense for MBR to sell
their publications to those who want to buy it. After all, MBR does
need a source of revenue.

To which I responded as follows:

The Midwest Book Review does not sell our reviews to Amazon.com or anybody else. They are all given away for free to anyone who wants them -- especially to the publishers (and through them the authors) of the books that make the final cut here at the Midwest Book Review and get reviewed in one or more of our nine monthly book review publications.

When our reviews are posted to Amazon (for whom we are a content provider and have been for great many years now) they always carry a credit citation of either Midwest Book Review, or the title of one of our various publications (The Bookwatch; California Bookwatch; Children's Bookwatch; Internet Bookwatch; Library Bookwatch; MBR Bookwatch; Reviewer's Bookwatch; Small Press Bookwatch; Wisconsin Bookwatch).

The reviews posted on Amazon by our volunteer reviewers (like Harriet Klausner) which appear in either Reviewer's Bookwatch or MBR Bookwatch are by posted those reviewers with that particular reviewer's name as the citation credit.

In the past, Amazon has had two eccentric assertions concerning the book reviews posted on their website:

1. They claimed ownership of all reviews posted by readers.

2. They tried to offer for sale some of those reviews.

With respect to the first assertion, all rights to a review belong to either the reviewer that made them or the publication that paid the salary for that reviewer to write them for that publication. Unless the reviewer has specially sold or otherwise given up ownership rights to the review. I've never heard of that happening.

With respect to the attempt at making money ($9.95!!!) from selling a review, that makes no fiscal sense at all. The market for such a thing would be an author and/or publisher wanting to use that Amazon posted review for a marketing campaign. But (at least with respect to the Midwest Book Review) all publishers (and through them the authors) are provided the review for free -- and accompanied by a publisher notification letter outlining all the various places that the review has been posted or published.

The Midwest Book Review gives those authors and/or publishers automatic and complete permission to utilize the review in any manner they deem useful in their efforts to publicize, promote, and market their book.

So what's the incentive to pay out cold cash for a review that they've already gotten for free?

Then there's the little matter of anybody being able to simply do a 'copy & paste' of a posted review from off the Amazon website and onto their own computer.

Still, Amazon has been trying to sell reviews for a few years now -- and not with any success that I've ever heard about.

I think maybe the fiscal logic behind their attempts is that kind of logic that underlies those Nigerian SPAMS -- send out a couple of million emails and perhaps a few scattered and naive people can be tricked into parting with some cash.

Bottom line -- The Midwest Book Review provides Amazon with our reviews because it increases the audience for them in behalf of our reviewers, the publishers, and the authors. We've never charged anyone (especially not Amazon) for doing this. It's part of fulfilling our mandate to promote literacy, library usage, and small press publishing.

And posting reviews on Amazon (along with our reviews appearing on such other online databases as Lexus-Nexus, Goliath, Book Review Index, etc.) helps to make us a very popular book review resource for the publishing community.

Jim Cox
Midwest Book Review

I'm now going to conclude this issue of the "Jim Cox Report" with "The Midwest Book Review Postage Stamp Hall Of Fame & Appreciation" roster of well-wishers and supporters. These are the generous folk who decided to say 'thank you' and 'support the cause' that is the Midwest Book Review by donating postage stamps this past month:

Leland W. Cross
Henry Hoffman
Fran Smith -- "Friendly Feathers"
Debra Purdy Kong -- "Fatal Encryption"
Maureen Cain -- "Let Your Dough Ri$e"
Annette Haws -- "Waiting For The Light To Change"
Sam Moffie -- "The Organ Grinder And The Monkey"
Thomas A. Leenerts -- "There Is Only You Beholding You"
Roswitha McIntosh -- "The Mad Man And His Mistress - History in the Making"
Chery A. Bazzoui -- "Runaway Grandma"
Avail Press
Best Fairy Books
Enrichment Books
Dark Sky Publishing
Broad Reach Publishing
Clumsy Ducks Publishing
Safe Goods Publishing
Cable Publishing Inc.
RMJ Publications
Kunati Books
Glenda Selvage -- Axios Press
Liana C. Lovell -- Mystic Publishers
Lily G. Stephen -- Blooming Rose Press
Edward R. Wood -- "Summertime Books"
Bill Klemm -- Benecton Press
Leila Joiner -- Imago Press
Barbara Peters -- Poisoned Pen Press
Susan Alcorn -- Shepherd Canyon Books
Alyce Barry -- Practically Shameless Press
Kate Miller -- Terrific Science Press
Brian Stepanic -- Panic Press
Betty Hugh -- Clay Dog Books
Kathy Stevens -- Global Advance
Janet Terrill -- W.S. Beetle & Company
John Errett -- Free Enterprise Press Inc.
Maryglenn McCombs -- Oceanview Publishing
Wayne E. Stahre -- Habitation of Chimham Publishing
Mary Kay Lazarus -- MKL Public Relations
Elizabeth Waldman Frazier -- Waldmania!
Nigel J. Yorwerth -- Yorwerth Associates
Anonymous -- Studio City, California

If you have postage to donate, or if you have a book you'd like considered for review, then send those stamps (always appreciated, never required), or a published copy of that book (no galleys or uncorrected proofs), accompanied by a cover letter and some form of publicity release to my attention at the address below.

All of the previous issues of the "Jim Cox Report" are archived on the Midwest Book Review website. If you'd like to receive the "Jim Cox Report" directly (and for free), just send me an email asking to be signed up for it.

So until next time, goodbye, good luck, and good reading!

Jim Cox
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive, Oregon, WI, 53575
http://www.midwestbookreview.com

Graphic Arts and Printing Career Resources: "Graphic Arts and Printing Career Guide



VOCATIONAL
INFORMATION CENTER



Graphic Arts and Printing Career Descriptions

Explore careers in Graphic Arts with the following links to job descriptions, which include information such as daily activities, skill requirements, salary and training required. To learn more about Graphic Arts and the Graphic Arts Industry, follow the related links below the career descriptions section."

September 10 - 12, 2008
The Sheraton Boston Hotel
Boston, MA


Produced by Boston Print Buyers, a Division of Print Buyers International"

How to Convince Your Boss to Send You to the 3rd Annual Print Buyers Conference

You know you need the education and professional connections at our September Conference - but your boss doesn't understand.

So we've put together the Top 10 Reasons to Attend to help you state your case.

1. You'll learn how to save money, time and resources on your print projects

2. You'll hone your skills in print and cross-media campaigns

3. You'll unlock the secrets of going green and improve the payback on your printing budget

4. You'll learn when to use digital vs. when to use offset

5. You'll network with hundreds of print buying professionals and benefit from their insights

6. You'll learn what new printing technologies are around the corner - and what new media you need to master

7. You'll meet printers, paper people, direct mail specialists and other service providers whose services might just match your needs

8. You'll get great value for your dollar - no other print buyers conference offers so much knowledge for so little money

9. You'll sneak away to Fenway Park and snag your boss some red-hot Red Sox memorabilia

10. You'll return to work with a terrific handle on the best resources, information and technologies from the people who know print buying best

In the Printing or Publishing Industries?
Join the PrintingPublishing Industries group on www.plaxo.com

Labels: commercial printing, digital printing, newspaper printing digital print publishing, printing digital print publishing barcasting new media

Markets are Conversations" on the Inernet, MainZone Cafe, Dave Mainwaring's business networks:

"The emergence of email groups, webboards, on-line people to people networks and Web 2 models has now enabled powerful global conversations. Relevant knowledge is exchanged with blinding speed. For businesses 'Markets are Conversations' on the Inernet.


Now anyone connected to the internet has access to and can participate in a virtual marketplace and once again achieve such a level of communication between people. Anyone can bypass formal hierarchies. This can totally rattle organizations and businesses. They often fear their loss of holding 'command and control' of knowledge management."

Boston Herald to cut up to 160 jobs, outsource printing: "Ink companies announce price hike

Flint Group North America Publication Inks Division announced a crude oil surcharge of $.10 per pound, effective July 1. The increase is in response to rapidly increasing raw material, energy and freight costs, and will affect all heatset, coldest and newspaper inks sold in North America, Flint said.

Meantime, Central Ink Corp. said it will hike its prices July 1, also citing raw materials costs. The increase includes an extra $0.12 per pound on all non-heat black inks, an 8 percent increase on all non-heat colors and a 6 percent increase on all heatset inks."

Margie Dana's Print Buyers Conference 08: "Margie Dana’s Print Buyers International (PBI). PBI is an international organization focusing on the needs of print buyers, while creating a forum that unites buyers with printers and suppliers throughout the graphic arts industry.

PBI is our umbrella organization that includes Boston Print Buyers (BPB), our member-based professional association that caters to those who purchase or oversee the purchase of print and other media. PBI is not a replacement for Boston Print Buyers.

BPB continues to be an active, member-driven division of PBI. Boston Print Buyers will continue to hold regular dinner programs in the Boston area."

Print Buyers International more accurately reflects our association's market and global reach.

Why "Print Buyers International"?

There are three reasons:

1. Our weekly enewsletter, Margie's Print Tips, is currently read by industry professionals worldwide, throughout 26 countries. We have been marketing globally since the Tips began back in 1999.

2. Print buyers the world over share many of the same issues, including a universal need for more education about the industry. PBI provides this education through numerous channels.

3. Printing is global - and print buying is, too. As they evaluate printing resources worldwide, print buyers need and deserve information to help in their decision-making process. PBI strives to provide this information to help buyers everywhere.

PBI's Mission Statement

In recognition of the fact that print buyers around the world share the same issues, face the same challenges, and seek the same information about the printing industry, Margie Dana's Print Buyers International (PBI) strives to serve this group of professionals.

We will serve them through programs, conferences, and a variety of online communications tools, to bring them relevant news and information that will enhance their working relationships with providers of printing and the related graphic arts.

In doing so, we hope to open doors between print customers and service providers in the industry, in ways that build bridges and strengthen business relationships the world over.

--

Get a Clear Edge on Print Buying Success
3rd Annual Print Buyers Conference

September 10-12, 2008
Sheraton Boston Hotel

Gene Weingarten - Corrections: Yanks Thump Sox - washingtonpost.com:

By Gene Weingarten

Sunday, June 22, 2008; Page W32

"If you are like I, you are pretty sick of reading articles about how the financially-troubled newspaper industry is making desperation budget cutting moves: Downsizing its products, laying off staff, buying prostitutes for advertisers, and so forth. But believe me, you'd be even sicker of it if you were INSIDE a typical American newsroom these days, where it's sometimes hard to hear over the 200 decibel background drone of human whining.

"How good a copy editor would you be?
See how many of the 57 errors of fact, grammar, syntax and style in this column you can catch, and then read the corrections below."

Editorial Observer - In a Changing World of News, an Elegy for Copy Editors - Editorial - NYTimes.com: "Ouch. Copy editors are my favorite people in the news business, and many I know are still alive and doing what they do. As it happened, I couldn’t find anything about them on the fifth or any other floor. A call later confirmed that the museum has essentially nothing about how newspapers are made today, and thus nothing about the lowly yet exalted copy editor.

I was one for a long time, and I know that obscurity and unpopularity are part of the job. Copy editors work late hours and can get testy. They never sign their work."

TechGirlz - A Documentary about Women in Technology » News: "You can now subscribe to the TechGirlz RSS feed available through Feedburner. Simply past the following feed link into your RSS newsreader. http://feeds.feedburner.com/TechgirlzBlog"

Labels: printing digital print publishing barcasting new media, printing digital print publishing scrapobooking, publishing

FREE library of FusionPro Desktop training videos!
Basic Functionality l Advanced Functionality l Impositioning l JavaScript Rules l

Here you'll be able to find an abundance of on-demand, detailed, and narrated videos to help you use the full power of FusionPro Desktop. Please be sure to contact us if there are additional topics where a video tutorial is desired. Enjoy!

Basic Functionality

This set of videos covers the typical day-to-day use and functionality of FusionPro Desktop. Topics include working with data files, wizards, and colors, these short tutorials will get you up and running in a matter of a couple of hours."

Advanced Functionality

Moving beyond the basics, this group of videos helps the viewer learn to use the extra features and power of FusionPro Desktop. After spending an hour or so watching these tutorials, the user should start to become more comfortable with creating complex templates and rules.

Impositioning Functionality

The final step for most printers is also one of the powerful features of FusionPro Desktop - the ability to impose the output, regardless of format, during composition. The RIP's resource time is expensive and these videos show how easy it is to use FusionPro Imposer to deliver imposed output to your RIP, resulting in shorter 'first page out' times.

JavaScript Rules

Don't let the name fool you! These videos are designed for everyone from the brand new user who knows very little about business rules to the experienced programmer who simply needs information on the FusionPro-specific functions and objects.

Labels: commercial printing, digital printing, printing digital print publishing, printing digital print publishing VDP DDP

The Midwest Book Review

Established in 1976, the Midwest Book Review publishes several monthly publications for community and academic library systems in California, Wisconsin, and the upper Midwest:

• The Bookwatch
• California Bookwatch
• Children's Bookwatch
• Internet Bookwatch
• Library Bookwatch
• MBR Bookwatch
• Reviewer's Bookwatch
• Small Press Bookwatch
• Wisconsin Bookwatch

We post all our reviews on the Internet with a number of thematically appropriate areas of the Internet such as alt.books.reviews and Pub-Forum. Our reviews are also available through Internet bookstores such as Amazon.com.

The Gale Research Company of Farmington Hills, Mich., has contracted with the Midwest Book Review to provide electronic copies of all of book reviews we publish in our library newsletters, on the Internet, and develop for our weekly television programs. In addition to making our reviews available to library systems nationwide in their print, magnetic tape, and diskette series, the Gale Research Company uses these reviews in their Book Review Index interactive CD-ROM series, designed for use by community, university, and corporate libraries nationwide in the U.S. and Canada.

We also produce a short wave radio book review commentary, the KNLS Bookwatch, that goes out every month to Europe, North America, South America, and the Pacific Rim. It's a lot of fun -- I read my book review commentary into the phone here in Oregon, Wis. My director records it on his studio equipment in Nashville, Tenn., and then pipes it to the KNLS broadcast studio in Anchor City, Alaska. From there it is beamed up to a satellite for worldwide distribution.

We also serve as an Acquisitions Consultant for Dane County Library Services, which is responsible for 52 southern Wisconsin community library systems.

The Midwest Book Review is an organization of volunteers committed to promoting literacy, library usage, and small press publishing. We accept no financial donations from authors or publishers for our services.

Publisher Information

The Midwest Book Review gives priority consideration to small press publishers, self-published authors, academic presses. Please follow the instructions for submitting books.

Reviewer Information

Ever wanted to be a reviewer? Learn how you can become a reviewer for the Midwest Book Review!

An Unabashed Invitation!

We intend to become a major Internet and Web resource for publishers, writers, librarians, booksellers, and book lovers of all ages and interests. If you have a Web site that you think would interest book lovers, librarians, publishers, and booksellers, we would be very interested in hotlinking your site to the steadily expanding Midwest Book Review resource hotlinks. E-mail your URL to the Midwest Book Review so that your site can be examined.

Good luck and good reading!

Labels: and book lovers, booksellers, librarians, printing digital print publishers, publishing, writers

Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2008 10:40:37 -0600
From: James Cox

Jim wrote:

I've added two new and informative articles to the "Advice for Writers & Publishers" section of the Midwest Book Review website at http://www.midwestbookreview.com. One is called 'Blogs As A Book Marketing Tool' and the other is 'Publishers Judge Books By Their Covers'.

I've written a foreword to a new 'how to' book on the craft of book reviewing. It's to be called "The Slippery Art Of Book Reviewing", favorable cites either myself or the Midwest Book Review four times, and is due out about May from Twilight Times Books. I'll write more extensively about it when its published and available to folks who aspire to do what I do for a living.

I've also completed a rather extensive Q&A on book reviewing in general, and the Midwest Book Review in particular, for Behler Publications to use in one of their upcoming 'how to' titles for writers and authors that is tentatively titled "The Writer's Toolbox" and will be out later in the summer or early fall.

I'm also scheduled as an interview guest on a couple of up-coming Internet podcasts.

The Writing/Publishing Shelf

Writing As A Small Business
Nash Black
Outskirts Press, Inc.
10940 South Parker Road, #515, Parker, CO 80134
9781432716257, $19.95 www.outskirtspress.com 1-888-672-6657

Earning a living as a professional writer is a business. Writing freelance is the equivalent of being a self-employed small business owner and operator. As such, meticulous attention must be made to how that business is structured, operated, and kept track of. Failure to keep aware of the proverbial 'bottom line' can lead to financial and professional disaster. Enter Nash Black's 196-page instructional guide and reference "Writing As A Small Business" covers what every aspiring (and practicing) professional author needs to know about the financial side of their work including whether or not to incorporate or operate as a sole proprietorship, the keeping and storage of financial records, filling out state and federal tax forms, avoiding audits, handling advances with respect to royalties, grants and gratuities; safeguarding the computer from hackers and online viruses, and generally protecting the financial rights and aspects of a written work -- before and after publication. Enhanced with bibliographies of thematically appropriate informational resources on the subject of the economics of professional writing, a glossary of terms, and an index, "Writing As A Small Business" is a critically important, thoroughly 'user friendly', instructional guide that should be on the personal reference shelf of every aspiring writer seeking to financially support themselves and their loved ones through their writing regardless of the genre, category, or discipline they are writing in and for.

Good Writing for Journalists
Angela Phillips
Sage Publications
2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320-2218
9781412919173, $39.95 www.sagepub.com 1-800-818-7243

Written by journalist and college teacher Angela Phillips, Good Writing for Journalists is a no-nonsense guide to improving the quality of one's nonfiction writing. Chapters cover genres ranging from profile writing and interviews to direct reporting, news analysis, investigation, sports writing, personal and opinion columns, "lifestyle" writing, and more. A large portion of Good Writing for Journalists is devoted to sample journalistic pieces that exemplify positive and memorable qualities, all the better to see Phillips' teachings in use. Enthusiastically recommended especially for journalism students and majors.

ACTS Of Teaching
Joyce Armstrong Carroll & Edward E. Wilson
Teacher Ideas Press
PO Box 6926, Portsmouth, NH 03802-6926
9781591585176, $45.00 www.teacherideaspress.com 1-800-225-5800

The art of writing is a learned skill honed through practice. Now in an extensively updated and significantly expanded second edition, "ACTS Of Teaching: How To Teach Writing" by academicians Joyce Armstrong Carroll and Edward E. Wilson (both of whom are Co-Directors of Abydos Learning International) is a 501-page compendium of instruction on all aspects of the art and craft of teaching aspiring authors how to write effectively regardless of the genre or discipline they are writing in or for. After an informed and informative introduction, "ACTS Of Teaching: How To Teach Writing" is dived into two primary sections dealing with 'Process' and 'The Theory and Pedagogy'. An overview of writing as a process beings with 'Prewriting: More Than the Beginning', continues on with 'Writing and Organizing', 'Writing as a Social Act', 'Grammar and Correcting', 'Grammar through Revision', Grammar through Reformulation', 'Postwriting and Publishing', and 'Assessment'. "ACTS Of Teaching: How To Teach Writing" continues with a major and detailed chapter on the way the brain works in the writing process, before going on to address such issues as 'Learning How to Learn', 'Early Literacy', 'Research', and 'Writing as a Mode of Learning. Enhanced with an extensive and extended bibliography, "ACTS Of Teaching: How To Teach Writing" also features nine highly relevant appendices (note especially the first one offering a List of Genres), and a comprehensive index. "ACTS Of Teaching: How To Teach Writing" is note only very highly recommended as an educational curriculum guide and supplement for the teaching of writing in a college or university level course, it is also invaluable reading for any aspiring writer seeking to become as effective as they can be within the demands of any scientific discipline, literary genre, or commercial enterprise they might find themselves working in.

Off the Page
Carole Burns, editor
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110
9780393339885, $14.95 www.wwnorton.com

Off the Page: Writers Talk About Beginnings, Ending, and Everything in Between is an anthology of interviews with a diversity of authors describing the creation process of a literary work. Joyce Carol Oates begins and ends her writing process creating and reworking the beginning of a book; A.S. Byatt assembles a novel from "blocks of color"; and E.L. Doctorow crafts a story from a specific and compelling image that often springs to mind without context. From the intersection of sex, love, and literature (Martin Amis insists that good sex is impossible to write about!) to the reader's part in the creative process (or at least, the effect that readers' imagined reaction has on the mind of the author), Off the Page runs the gamut of influences and effects upon the evolution of a book. Originally typed directly on interviewer Carole Burns' computer as she listened to the interviewees and posted in real-time on the Web, Off the Page is undeniably authentic in his honest portrayal of the authors' mission to write literature worth reading.

Now for some Q&A from the Midwest Book Review email box:

In a message dated 11/19/2007 2:59:37 P.M. Central Standard Time, admin@readerviews.com writes:

Jim, I'm curious. :-) I note the reviews you post on amazon don't acknowledge the actual reviewer. Is there a reason why not?

You also mention in the guidelines you always give 5 stars. Curious on that one too. I notice some of the reviews we've done, as well as you have, our reviewers give low stars - even as low as 1 or 3. This is usually due to poor editing, grammar issues, no character development, etc. Basically, those books that are self-published and the author just didn't do any more with it than run it through the spell-check.

I'm still in the learning mode on all this.

Irene Watson

Dear Irene:

The reviews we generate 'in-house' with our staff members are only given the citation of Midwest Book Review on Amazon. The tear sheets we furnish the publishers (along with their notification letters) will have a more detailed citation as to which of our nine publications the review appears in.

The freelance and volunteer reviewers (like yourself and those you represent) are responsible for posting their own reviews to Amazon. Including their own judgement as to how many stars to award. This is because some of them don't wish to post on Amazon, while others are quite happy to.

With respect to the 5 Star notation for our in-house reviews for Amazon, it is because any book deemed defective is rejected for review in our initial screening process. Then any book deemed by the reviewer to be too flawed to be recommended to its intended readership is also rejected for inclusion into our publications.

I've always felt that a 5 Star point system is so subjective as to be meaningless. One person's 3 is another person's four, and a third person's 5. If I had my way, there would be no such point system, but the reader would discover in the course of reading the review whether or not the reviewer was recommending the book as worth the prospective reader's time.

However, Amazon requires a rating be assigned to any review posted with them. Therefore any book that makes it through our initial screening process when it is competing with more than 2,000 titles a month being submitted for review consideration by making the final cut and receive a review assignment, and the staff reviewer feels is recommendable to the intended readership for that particular book, is automatically awarded a 5 Star rating when posted on Amazon.

Each review will always have a line or two specifically recommending it to what he or she has deemed to be its intended or desired readership. That's the 'failsafe' against "5-Starring" flawed or substandard books in the Midwest Book Review process.

Because we are content providers for Amazon (as well as several other online book review databases) we are obliged to post all of the in-house generated reviews that make it into the pages of The Bookwatch; The California Bookwatch; The Children's Bookwatch; The Internet Bookwatch; The Library Bookwatch; The Small Press Bookwatch; and The Wisconsin Bookwatch.

The MBR Bookwatch and Reviewer's Bookwatch are the two publications set aside for the volunteers and freelancers. It's up to the individual reviewers (who own all rights to their reviews and for whom we merely serve as a forum) to decide if they will post their reviews on Amazon, and if so, what rating to assign them.

For a select number of our volunteer reviewers (including those that you represent) who want us to (because it will expands the readership for their reviews) we also make their reviews available along with our own in-house reviewers available to such databases as Lexus-Nexus, Book Review Index, Goliath, and others aimed at academic, corporate, governmental, and public libraries and librarians.

Your questions are good ones and come up once or twice every year from either new publishers or visitors to the Amazon website. Therefore I'll be including this little Q&A in one of my "Jim Cox Report" columns for the small press community.

I recently went up on the Amazon website and found that there are currently more than 34,000 reviews from the Midwest Book Review posted there. That's a rather impressive number when you think that it does not reflect our individual reviewers such as Harriet Klausner who post their reviews on Amazon independently of us, or those Midwest Book Review reviews that were deleted from Amazon when the books went out of print and were otherwise dropped from Amazon.

Jim Cox
Midwest Book Review

In a follow-up inquiry, Irene asked a further question about Midwest Book Review operations:

In a message dated 11/20/2007 10:04:52 A.M. Central Standard Time, admin@readerviews.com writes:

Thanks Jim for being so patient with my questions. Now the "big" one....lol. Being you give free reviews, where does the money come from to pay your editorial staff? I want to know the secret!

Irene

Dear Irene:

Here is the closely guarded secret to becoming a financially successful book reviewer.

Marry rich!

Otherwise you'll have to depend on getting foundation grants based on a mission statement mandating the purpose of promoting literacy, library usage, and small press publishing -- and in the case of the Midwest Book Review -- then getting those grants renewed every year for the past 31 years.

Plus the selling of review books to libraries and bookstores, as well as giving them away to charities.

Owning the building which houses the Midwest Book Review and having staff members who work for minimum wage plus their room & board is also a big help (that's me as editor-in-chief, my daughter Bethany as managing editor and webmaster, my wife Nancy and a young man named Jason as assistant editors). While everyone else on the editorial staff volunteers their time and labor for the sheer love of literature.

Especially those among them who never aspired to writing the great American novel, but modestly enjoy the power of life and death over those who do!

By the way, I've covered this subject of how the Midwest Book Review is funded on a more serious note from time to time in my monthly "Jim Cox Report". They are all archived on the Midwest Book Review website, and subscription to the "Jim Cox Report" is available for free via email upon request. If you don't get them already, you might want to sign up for them because I talk about the inner workings of the Midwest Book Review now and then.

Jim Cox
Midwest Book Review

I'd also like to note that Irene Watson now utilizes two of our monthly book review publications for the columns of reviews and reviewers that she edits:

Her 'Reader Views' column is part of our "MBR Bookwatch" and started a couple of months ago.

And debuting in our March 2008 issue of "Reviewer's Bookwatch" will be found her review column 'RebeccasReads'.

Here's another inquiry that comes in every so often.

In a message dated 12/3/2007 4:08:09 P.M. Central Standard Time, RDAVIDH218 writes:

I'm in need of a book distributor, and someone to market the book; the publisher doesn't provide this service

-- David Hughes

Dear David:

Go to the Midwest Book Review website at http://www.midwestbookreview.com

Click on Publisher Resources

You will find a subsection dedicated to distributors and wholesalers. You'll also find a list of freelance book publicists and marketeers. One of them might be appropriate for you.

Jim Cox
Midwest Book Review

The Midwest Book Review is designed to be of specific and practical use to writers, publishers, booksellers, librarians, and the general reading public. If you've got a question or a need concerning writing, publishing, or book marketing, then you'll most likely be able to find the answer and/or a resource to help you out. If not, I'm as near as your computer keyboard -- email me any time and I'll do my best to help.


All of the previous issues of the "Jim Cox Report" are archived on the Midwest Book Review website. If you'd like to receive the "Jim Cox Report" directly (and for free), just send me an email asking to be signed up for it.

So until next time!

Jim Cox
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive, Oregon, WI, 53575
http://www.midwestbookreview.com

# posted by Dave_Mainwaring @ Monday, March 03, 2008 0 comments

PUBLISHING: Survival of an industry of expression: "VILNIUS - It was a bad omen. The first material to be printed in a Baltic language was a Lutheran manuscript that appeared in Estonian in 1525. But due to the seething religious hostilities of the day, it never reached the readers and was destroyed immediately after publication.
Ever since this time, published materials in the Baltic region have been abused and censored over the centuries, becoming a front line in the eternal war for the hearts and minds of the masses.
The first printed texts in Latvian also appeared around 1525, then in Lithuanian a little later, but the efforts were scrappy and it was another 10 years before a complete book emerged - the Wanradt-Koell catechism from the year 1535, published in Estonian."


Active registered publishers

Lithuania: 500
Latvia: 400
Estonia: 351

Dick Margulis writes on
words / myth / ampers & virgule:

"Have you noticed lately that the books you buy—I mean books from major publishing houses—are full of typos and editing gaffes? I see this complaint often. I make this complaint myself from time to time."

-- snipped --

Mostly, there isn’t much you and I can do about this, other than producing books outside the mainstream publishing industry and building up an appreciation for high-quality books.

There is one category where individuals can make a difference, though. If you teach a course—especially at the college level—and you are unhappy with the quality of the course textbook, say something.

Complaining to a publisher that their wurstmakers fell down on the job isn’t going to change the publisher’s process or business model; it will just lead to hiring different wurstmakers. But suggesting to the buyer that you switch to a different brand of sausage will catch the publisher’s attention. I guarantee it. Write a letter to whoever was responsible for choosing that textbook. Explain the problem with the quality, and suggest that a competing book from a different publisher be selected for the following year’s students. Send a copy of the letter to the president of the publishing company. Hit where it hurts—in the wallet.

--

About Dick Margulis:



Once you’ve finished the champagne, it’s time to switch hats and convert your opus into a product. Don’t know where to start? Freelance editor and typographer Dick Margulis can help.

Dick’s first editing job was chief copy editor for his junior high school newspaper–unpaid, of course–46 years ago. But his interest in typography predates that by a couple of years. He got serious about it in seventh grade.

In the intervening decades, Dick has been a butcher, a baker, and a candlestick maker–yes, all three–and, along the way, has had paying gigs as an advertising copywriter, a magazine columnist, a book editor, a technical writer, a marketing writer, an herbarist [sic], a Web designer, a compositor, a lithographer, and a few other things he’s already forgotten. But through it all, he has remained true to his passion of clear communication through careful editing and appropriate typographic design.

"It’s All Online
from The Writing Center by Midge Raymond

When it comes to selling books these days, it’s all about the Internet. Forbes’ Best of the Web features a few literary blogs that have gotten the attention of readers and have had “an impact on the way books are talked about and sold like never before.” Probably among the best features of such sites (like the popular Bookslut) are their informal styles and the fact that they discuss books not reviewed in the New York Times (yes, these books do exist, and are worth reading)."


--

For Internet-addicted writers…
from The Writing Center by Midge Raymond

This Emerging Writers Network blog is, refreshingly, geared specifically toward writers new to the marketplace. The site’s host, Dan Wickett, is out there for the Everywriter, claiming no qualifications other than “a long history of reading literary fiction, in large volumes, and the dedication to passing along my views on such, at as rapid a pace as I can, until the writers of such fiction get more recognition.” It’s well worth a visit, with links to author web sites, literary blogs, and literary magazines — plus news and contests.

Another fun site is 52stories, a site that features a new photo every week to serve as a writing prompt…a great way to overcome writer’s block as well as see your work online — 52stories will publish the stories received by its Friday evening deadline.

And, saving the best for last, San Diego Writers Online is now live! Stop by and join — this new forum will connect writers looking for read-and-critique groups, book clubs, reading and writing events around town, and lively online discussions.

Green-Minded Staples Ends Ties With Asia Pulp & Paper: "Green-Minded Staples Ends Ties With Asia Pulp & Paper
Source: Copyright 2008, Wall Street Journal
Date: February 7, 2008
Byline: Tom Wright

"Office-supplies giant Staples Inc. has severed all contracts with Singapore-based Asia Pulp & Paper Co. Ltd., one of the world's largest paper companies, in a move that shows concerns over forest destruction and global warming are having an impact on big U.S. paper buyers.

Until recently Staples sourced about 9% of its total paper supply from APP and used the paper for its own Staples-branded stock, mainly photocopy and office paper. Staples had stuck with the company even as other large paper sellers in the U.S., Europe and Asia, including Office Depot Inc., stopped buying from APP in recent years because of alleged environmental misdeeds. Staples had hoped that continuing to buy from the company would prompt APP to improve its environmental record."

Labels: commercial printing, printing digital print publishing VDP DDP

From: James Cox, Midwest Book Review
--

Dear Publisher Folk, Friends & Family:

Labels: publishing

"KNOW YOUR RIGHTS AS THE AUTHOR

* The author is the copyright holder.
As the author of a work you are the copyright holder unless and until you transfer the copyright to someone else in a signed agreement.

* Assigning your rights matters.
Normally, the copyright holder possesses the exclusive rights of reproduction,
distribution, public performance, public display, and modification of the
original work. An author who has transferred copyright without retaining these
rights must ask permission unless the use is one of the statutory exemptions in
copyright law."
--
What is SPARC? http://www.arl.org/sparc/about/index.html

"SPARC ®, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, is an international alliance of academic and research libraries working to correct imbalances in the scholarly publishing system. Developed by the Association of Research Libraries, SPARC has become a catalyst for change. Its pragmatic focus is to stimulate the emergence of new scholarly communication models that expand the dissemination of scholarly research and reduce financial pressures on libraries. Action by SPARC in collaboration with stakeholders – including authors, publishers, and libraries – builds on the unprecedented opportunities created by the networked digital environment to advance the conduct of scholarship. Leading academic organizations have endorsed SPARC."

Labels: printing digital print publishing scrapobooking

from: Gail http://www.business-strategies-etc.com/2008/print-me-something-yummy/

Print Me Something Yummy!
Monday, January 14, 2008 | Posted to New/Unusual Technology

Sugar SculptureAdd one more to the category of "New or Unusual
Printing Technology" with CandyFab! Using a type of 3-D prototyping -
printing in three dimensions with inkjet deposition technology - you
can print any thing from candy treats to sophisticated sculptures out
of sugar. The image at the left uses a design from a sculptor named
Bathsheba Grossman; see her work at www.bathsheba.com.

Simple Sugar SculptureSo how does it work? Rapid prototyping machines
(3-D printers) are a relatively new form of manufacturing that builds
objects in three dimensions by carefully depositing materials drop by
drop, layer by layer using a form of inkjet deposition. With the right
set of materials and a geometric blueprint, you can fabricate complex
objects that would normally take special resources, tools and skills
if produced using conventional manufacturing techniques.

To read all about it go to CandyFab.org.

Labels: printing digital print publishing VDP DDP

Data-driven Publishing - Amazon offers “The Kailing Name in History” | Gail Nickel-Kailing | Business Strategies Etc. | Marketing, Analysis, Consulting | Seattle, WA: "Data-driven Publishing - Amazon offers “The Kailing Name in History”
Monday, January 28, 2008 |

Gail wrote: The Kailing Name in HistoryLast night, Amazon offered me a book I was sure to find interesting: “The Kailing Name in History.” For only $29.95!

OK, you say, so why were you searching for your own name on Amazon? Gosh, don’t we all Google our own name or search other online databases?

By combining variable imaging, a dynamic web page, variable data printing, and print-on-demand, Amazon is demonstrating the power of “cross-media” in merchandising customized books."

The Kailing Name in History is a customized book offering a unique blend of fascinating facts, statistics and commentary about the Kailing name. The book is just one of an entire series of family name books in the Our Name in History collection. Each book in the collection is printed on demand and is compiled from hundreds of millions of records from the world’s largest online resource of family history, Ancestry.com. This particular book follows the Kailing family name through history and makes the perfect gift for your family members and anyone interested in the Kailing name. In the book you’ll find out about where people with the Kailing last name originated. You may discover the countries and ports they left behind, the ships they sailed and more. You’ll get a better idea of where people sharing the Kailing name settled and where they may reside today in the United States, Canada, England and other countries. You’ll get all this information and much more in your Kailing family name book. If your last name is not Kailing, then check out our collection of nearly 300,000 family name books to find other available names in the series.

Actually, they could have used at least 3 or 4 fewer insertions of my name and still have been as effective. It starts to look like mail merge gone bad!

Labels: printing digital print publishing VDP DDP

Hello Dave Mainwaring

Congratulations: you've successfully created your Google Group, Dave's Digital
Scrapbooking Discussion Group.

Here are the essentials:

* Group name: Dave's Digital Scrapbooking Discussion Group
* Group home page: http://groups.google.com/group/daves-digital-scrapbooking?hl=en
--

Scrapbooking got a shot in the arm more than thirty years ago when Marielen Christensen of Spanish Fork scrapbooked her family's memories. She co-authored and published a how-to book, "Keeping Memories Alive". Now in the 21st century Journal writing and digital-scrapbooking are in vogue for preserving memories.

During the past decade the printing industry has seen light speed changes in publishing technologies. Inexpensive high quality digital scanners, home PC's, and remote publishing over the Internet make it easy for scrapbookers with no graphic arts or printing experience to produce very high quality bound alblums and scrapbooks.

David Lewis offers state of the art online Digital Scrapbooking

Labels: printing digital print publishing scrapobooking artistic designs collages

The Writing Center » Blog Archive » Top 10 Blogs for Writers: "Michael Stelzner of Writing White Papers has just listed his picks for 2007’s top ten blogs for writers — a great resource for copywriters and bloggers, and particularly for freelance writers (including beginners)."

Cambridge firms drawing on digital graffiti - The Boston Globe: "Making the leap to the big screen
2 Cambridge companies let cellphones go public with messages, photos

By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Globe Staff | January 1, 2008

Flat-screen digital graffiti boards displaying text messages and photos sent from cellphones are beginning to give the virtual world a foothold in pubs, clubs, and beyond."

"... new technologies allow screens to connect to the Internet, the power for advertisers and content makers expands - content can become local, user-generated, or even tailored to the crowd watching a given screen."

Labels: printing digital print publishing barcasting new media

3D inkjet printers build physical models from computer-aided design (CAD) data. Multiple parts can be printed (manufactured) simultaneously 3D printers operate like a classics desktop inkjet printers. Some systems offer 24-bit color capabilities just like a document printer. 3D printer systems revolutionized the production of pieces having complex geometries and small, detailed features.
You can buy 3D printers that operate in any standard office environment with no need for a dedicated operator.

Depending on the materials deposited through the inkjet(s) you can manufacture production parts for low volume production runs, test CAD designs, make one-of-a-kind parts, build all sorts of architectural models and related components without having to first create molds and then casting parts.

When the printing industry was transitioning from shooting film and burning printing plates the Internet provided the Computer To Plate Pressroom for printers and manufacturers to share new methods, workflows and made the inkjet printer acceptable as a method to proof high quality color images prior to going to press. The 3D printer will be a desk-top model shop replacing the shop model makers.

We have launched the "3D Printing Methods and Applications" internet discussion group on Google Groups™. Join today, share your ideas, projects, ask questions 24x7, meet your peers. Membership is FREE,

"Matt Beals Consultant Enfocus Certified Trainer Markzware Recognized Trainer (206) 201-2320 - Main (720) 367-3869 - eFax mailto:matt@mattbeals.com

Matt wrote:

Friends don't let friends write HTML email

Come visit http://www.premediaworld.com where I am forming a new online forum with three partners. We're tailoring it to the premedia professionals to exchange tips, trick, how-to's and other relevant information. Not just for print/prepress but other forms of premedia as well.

You've pretty much got everything you need right there!!

"Fab@Home is a website dedicated to making and using fabbers - machines that can make almost anything, right on your desktop. This website provides an open source kit that lets you make your own simple fabber, and use it to print three dimensional objects. You can download and print various items, try out new materials, or upload and share your own projects. Advanced users can modify and improve the fabber itself. Fabbers (a.k.a 3D Printers or rapid prototyping machines) are a relatively new form of manufacturing that builds 3D objects by carefuly depositing materials drop by drop, layer by layer. Slowly but surely, with the right set of materials and a geometric blueprint, you can fabricate complex objects that would normally take special resources, tools and skills if produced using conventional manufacturing techniques. A fabber can allow you to explore new designs, email physical objects to other fabber owners, and most importantly - set your ideas free. Just as MP3s, iPods and the Internet have freed musical talent, we hope that blueprints and fabbers will democratize innovation."

"Researchers at the Tissue Engineering Department at the University of Tokyo Hospital and venture capitalist, Next 21, use specialized 3D inkjet printers to print custom artificial bones for implantation. Here's the process used to make an artificial bone. First, the patient's actual bone structure is scanned with X-ray and CT scanners. The resulting data is combined to make a three-dimensional computer model of the bone; a set of cross-sections is sent to the special 3D inkjet printer."

Close-Up On Technology - 3D Printers Lead Growth of Rapid Prototyping - 08/04: "The five 3D printer makers include Z Corp., which now offers three models of 3D printers, including its flagship ZPrinter 310; and Stratasys, which offers two versions of its Dimension 3D printer. 3D Systems, which sells both the widely known high-end SLA (stereolithography) and SLS (selective laser sintering) RP systems, launched its first “true 3D” printer, called InVision, in late 2003. Objet Geometries in Israel supplies the higher-end Eden 333 PolyJet 3D printer in North America through Stratasys."

Labels: 3D Printing

The online Scrapbooking site http://www.photoalbum.com/ is using TribalSketch for their online scrapbook design and layout. Users can upload images of all types and create beautiful multi-page scrapbooks right in their browser.

Labels: printing digital print publishing scrapobooking

Continuous learning is key
--
Bob Dale wrote: I am sad to announce that this will be my last estimating column for Graphic Monthly. I am proud to have been associated with this fine publication since I started writing this column 10 years ago.

The key message that I have tried to convey is the need for continuous learning. If you arrive at work, keep your head down and work hard without learning something every day, you will find in a few years that you have been left behind. I once did a study of a conventional prepress department with 16 professionals who did great work. But it quickly became clear that their knowledge level was at 30% of where it needed to be to stay current in today’s world of electronic prepress.
Continuous learning does not always mean that you have to attend night school for 13 weeks for years to get a certificate, although that is an excellent way of learning. Continuous learning comes from reading magazines like Graphic Monthly, and participating in trade associations like the Craftsmen Club, which is open to all, regardless of whether there is an active club in your community. Visit IAPHC.org for details.
Attending trade shows should be more than getting posters and free samples. Seminars, demonstrations and meetings are all great ways of learning. Attending seminars, and participating in online forums are great ways of keeping current without investing a significant amount of time. Formal designation and training records are important and should be tracked and kept in your employee file and included on your resume.
Thank you, Graphic Monthly readers for allowing me the wonderful opportunity to stay current on technology, process and management issues and to share these experiences and thoughts with you.
I leave you with a quote from Dave Mainwaring, who leads excellent forums on PrintPlanet.com:

“To succeed, stay focused.
Do what you do best,
up-skill, prepare for
new challenges,
make time for learning”

Bob Dale is president of Pilot Graphic Management Services Inc., a management-consulting and custom-training company. He is also on the executive of the Toronto Club of Printing House Craftsmen. Bob can be reached at (416) 410-4096, or via e-mail at pilotmanagement@rogers.com

Labels: commercial printing, newspaper printing digital print publishing

Printable Technologies to Demonstrate Integrated Marketing ... - Direct_Mail, Direct_Marketing, Marketing: "


Google will demonstrate Integrated Marketing Solutions including Personalized Cross-Media Direct Marketing and Collateral Management Solutions, at NCDM 2007, Las Vegas, from December 10 through December 12. Printable Technologies, Inc. is a leading provider of Integrated Marketing, Web to Print, and Personalized Direct Marketing Solutions. To align with these consumers, marketers are rapidly adopting new online marketing channels and integrating them into their campaigns. The cross-media solutions powered by Printable Technologies take advantage of the vast amount of data available to present personalized messages that make marketing more effective. Printable Technologies is a world leader providing Integrated Marketing Solutions including Cross Media Variable Data Publishing (VDP), One to One Marketing Campaigns, and Web to Print solutions, to corporate enterprises, creative agencies, and the graphic arts industry. The complete marketing campaign execution and tracking solution from Printable Technologies"

Labels: digital printing, printing digital print publishing

Mordy Golding wrote:

Books don't just appear on the bookshelves by themselves. Thanks to all the folks at Sams Publishing, and to Betsy Brown, Jon Steever, Krista Hansing, and Seth Kerney for their professional and untiring help in publishing this book. Special thanks to Kate Binder, who not only helped make sure this book was technically accurate, but offered valuable advice as well.

This book is a work that finds its words shaped from years of experience and friendship. Thanks to Sharon Steuer, Sandee Cohen, David Blatner, and Bert Monroy for your continued support.

There's no way that I could have possibly completed a project of this magnitude without the support from my friends at Adobe. While it's impossible to list everyone, there are some folks for which a blanket "thanks to everyone at Adobe" statement simply won't do. Thank you to Lydia Varmazis, Leon Brown, Will Eisley, Bob Schaffel, John Nack (congrats, Tiny Elvis!), Addy Roff, Kevin Connor, George Arriola, Ted Alspach, Paul Kim, Ron DiTorro, Lynn Grillo, Joe Smith, and Julieanne Kost.

I can't offer enough thanks to Dave Mainwaring and the entire membership of the Print Planet forums. It's a fun place to be, and I guarantee that I learn more from you guys than what you learn from me.

To the Wrotslavsky family, who welcomed me as one of their own over 12 years ago (and who still willingly admit to that fact today).

For all the times I asked him silly questions, like why the sky is blue, my father has forever earned the right to ask me how to create a mask in Photoshop (and other assorted technical support questions). My mother continues to serve as my role model for everything I do.

Of course, this book would not have been possible without the love and support of my wife, Batsheva, and my children, Chayala, Simcha Bunim, and Chavi. I'm one lucky man.

Mordy :)

Labels: commercial printing, digital printing

BOOK COVER DESIGN:
From: BookCoverDesigner: bookcoverdesigner@yahoo.ca
Posted to Publish-l forum 10/26/2007
http://bookcoverdesigner.typepad.com/

"Bar codes seem to be a never-ending point of contention. I frequently get eMails from clients about bar codes saying things like, 'it's too big. It's much bigger than the ones on the books I have here.' That's quite possible. Here's why: People often confuse UPC bar codes with Bookland EAN bar codes; since going to the 13-digit ISBN (Jan. 2007), bar codes have to be longer just to incorporate the extra numbers; most authors will now need to have the price embedded into the bar code, whereas this wasn't always necessary in the past. The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) has conveniently published the guidelines for bar codes on their site, and here's what they say: The Bookland EAN symbol, which always includes the 5-digit add-on, is 1' high x 2-3/16' wide at 100% magnification. At 80% magnification the overall size is approximately 13/16' high x 1-3/4' wide. Magnification may be any size between 80% and 200%. For offset printing it should not be necessary to print larger than 100%. (NOTE: Width is measured with a 3/32 inch 'quiet zone' on either side of bars. Height is measured from the top of the bars to the bottom of the numbers below the bars.)”"

WhatTheyThink.com - Print's Home Page: "There is a crisis in print buying By Frank Romano October 26, 2007 -- This week Margie Dana asked the question 'Is there is a crisis in print buying?' and I am here to say there is. In less than a decade we have gone from print buying professionals fully supported by their organizations to production and design professionals who, by the way, also buy print. Printing buying is now ancillary to other jobs. There are 23,000 full-timers who buy print in the United States and they purchase about 70 percent of all print and packaging. Less than 10 percent have print buying in heir titles. Another 92,000 buyers are involved in varying degrees, but virtually everyone else in the nation buys print at some time—from imprinted holiday cards to posters seeking a lost pet."

Information about print buying is scant. The reason is that print buyers, like designers, do not congregate. It is hard to find them because there is no common communication medium. Those that can be found tend to be the really larger print buyers and their data may not be representative of the entire market. But there is hope.

On November 7 and 8 in Westford, MA, the 2nd annual Boston Print Buyers Conference will take place. It brings together print buyers from New England, across the U.S., and even a few international buyers. What is most interesting is that over one hundred buyers signed up for the Print Buyers Boot Camp on November 6th, a basic course in printing and print buying. This is now the must-attend conference for anyone who buys print. Go to www.bostonprintbuyers.com and check it out.

E-commerce is said to be re-inventing the printing business. But it is not as easy as it sounds. E-commerce companies want to automate the process of originating, specifying, estimating, bidding, scheduling, tracking, and managing print. Some of the sources of print welcome this. Some will continue to rely on the primary interface between buyer and seller: the sales representative. But, with the Internet, the customer is evolving into the sales person and the service person.

Complex and very complex jobs account for 60 percent of the revenue of the printing industry. An oversimplified workflow: one third prep and program, one third print, and one third finish. In other words, most printed products are complex because they use multiple steps in the printing process, and the more complex the product the more it needs a godfather (or godmother). What is scary is that many complex print jobs are often initiated without any consultation with the printer.

Thus, I contend that there is a crisis in print buying and the need to educate the latest generation of buyers is critical. Good buyers make good customers—and they also help to make printers better as well.

# posted by Dave_Mainwaring @ Friday, October 26, 2007 1 comments

"People were calling colleagues from the booth saying, 'You gotta see this!' Truth be told, I didn't make it back for a closer look, but after I opened the samples I'd been handed, the marvel of video on the web showed me this is definitely something you have to see. MegaSpirea's MailLiner 100 was one of the Must See 'ems, and Scott Gerschwer, VP of Marketing (the guy who stopped me on the floor) told me last Friday, people were calling colleagues from the booth saying, 'You gotta see this!' The MailLiner 100 addresses the need of service bureaus and data centers to combine envelopes and their contents with 100% accuracy. Instead of printing a document and putting it into an envelope, the system creates the envelope in-line and wraps it around the document. Using a continuous-feed printer (think InfoPrint, Kodak, Nipson, Océ, or Xerox) a document is printed and is immediately followed by an envelope, bearing address, postal indicia and relevant messaging. The MailLiner 100 does the slitting and trimming needed to separate the envelope and its contents, does the requisite scoring, folding, gluing, and marries the pieces back together, ready to mail. Cameras and bar codes further ensure accurate matching of mail piece and envelope. The machine runs at about 300 pages per minute and can put up to 5 pages in each envelope."

Labels: printing digital print publishing

Hi - If you are going to Graph Expo or live in the Chicago area, I hope you will register to attend a special event featuring Dr. Joe Webb next week.


Last year, nearly 200 executives attended and the reviews were excellent. This year, Dr. Joe's presentation is entitled "Graphic Arts 2017: A Speculative Look at the Graphic Arts a Decade from Today". He will offer printing and publishing executives direction and insights relative to the future of print in a multichannel world.


Dr. Webb will also provide a 2008 economic outlook, both in terms of the printing industry and the general economy. A continental breakfast will be provided.


The event is Tuesday, (September 11) from 8:30 to 9:45 a.m. in Room S106B, McCormick Place in Chicago in conjunction with Graph Expo. The event is free, thanks to the support of MAN Roland.


Seating is limited so please sign up today. Other WhatTheyThink.com editors and commentators will be in attendance as well. We hope to see you there.


More info - or register
http://members.whattheythink.com/home/ge07event.cfm


Kind Regards,
Randy Davidson, President
WhatTheyThink.com

The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) is planning to bring print and digital newspapers together with back-to-back conferences this October 17-19.

This October Digital will meetup with Print at back to back at conference put on by World Association of Newspapers. Attendees will discover array of strategies for digital content, advertising, digital rights management at The World Digital Publishing Conference along side The 10th Editor and Marketeer Conference which will be focusing on print, free newspapers, marketing, and circulation. There will be a keynote speech on the latest world press trends.

Details at http://www.wan-press.org/

Labels: newspaper printing digital print publishing

BookAngst 101:


Advancing the Notion of (...ahem...) Realistic Advances: "A VOCATION OF UNHAPPINESS [Courtesy Georges Simenon (1903-1985)] 'Writing is considered a profession, and I don't think it is a profession. I think that everyone who does not need to be a writer, who thinks he can do something else, ought to do something else. Writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness. I don't think an artist can ever be happy.'"

Trade schools on the border. My solution to needed skilled workers

John M. Henry
July 27th, 2007

The printer industry in the USA needs trained press operators and bindery workers. Many other trades are having the same issues. The government so far has been only been in a political fight, not solving this issue. Forget training more designers, you can find one working at every coffee shop, they are like actors.

I have one solution that will take the whole issue one step forward. It is time to start building trade schools on the southern border. Fill them up, document them and send them to us…These trade schools would be like a dorm or as my college was a like, a low security jail Workers would stay and train in for 3-9 months as they are processed through and learn skills. If they do not have the IQ, fail out, criminal records, drug issues or cannot find and hold a job ship them back. After 3 years with a good work history and clean records, put them on the path to citizenship. I believe people who have the drive to walk and risk their life to get here, would have the drive to be good press or bindery worker.

I also have no problem saying if you have no needed skills, do not work hard or have a criminal record, you have no place in the USA. Of course political persecution and other aspects will allow you in the USA by other means. My solution is only for filling needed workers with needed skills. The way many illegal workers are taken advantage of by business today is unethical and criminal. We need to provide ways for the workers our industry needs, to come and work here. Away that will also be legal and not allow the workers to be abused. The current methods of doing this are far to limited, costly and time consuming. So we need to build trade schools on the border.

WhatTheyThink.com - Print's Home Page:

By Gail Nickel-Kailing, Senior WTT Editor

July 16, 2007 -- The new postage rates are clearly “top of mind” for printers, publishers, and mailers. The WhatTheyThink Postal Rates and Reform Webinar broadcast on May 15 drew more than 506 registrants seeking more information to help them offset or avoid new postage rates"

{excerpts from article} http://members.whattheythink.com/specialreports/070716gail.cfm

{Members get to read the full article, plus a free trial membership is provided so anyone can read the articles.}

Rate and Preparation Changes
The PRC recommendation for Periodicals included many changes that reflect cost-based rating. The biggest change in the rate design is moving from the traditional pound and piece rates to bundle and container rates.

• Pound Advertising and Editorial Rates - The pound rates were reduced for both advertising and editorial rates. Editorial pound rates offer reductions for varying destination entry levels in order to promote drop-shipment of lower advertising content publications.
• Piece Rates - Piece rates include new machineable and non-machineable rates for flats. Also, the basic rate category was replaced with MxADC and ADC rate categories, similar to Standard Mail.
• Piece Discounts - With the exception of the non-advertising piece discount, the piece discounts for destination entry, all pallets and co-palletized products were eliminated.
• Container Rate - Container rates were established to replace flat rate for all pallets and sacks. The rate is based on a combination of the container type (pallet or sack), container sort level and containers point of entry.
• Bundle Rates - Bundle rates are going into effect based on the presort level of each mailing bundle.

Opportunities to Avoid Postal Increases
There are several ways publishers can mitigate – or even avoid completely – the upcoming rate increases. By participating in a number of “work share” programs, publishers can prepare mail to qualify for additional discounts and cost savings. Let’s take a look at a few terms that describe various cost-avoidance programs.

Co-binding or online co-mailing - a printer binds a publication or catalog in the same bindery line at the same time as another company’s and combines their two mailings into one. This process requires that the publications be essentially the same size and have the block for addressing in the same place.

Co-mailing or offline co-mailing - the process of merging finished publications and/or catalogs that have already been bound into one mail stream. The co-mailing process combines address files for all participants into a single mail file that is presorted before the addresses are inkjetted on the covers. Then individual finished pieces are sorted into presorted bundles for which they would not have qualified in the past. Presorted bundles receive greater USPS discounts than unsorted bundles.

Commingling – a term that also refers to the process of merging multiple strings of mail into a single mail stream. Commingling is often used to refer to letter-sized mailings while co-mailing is used for periodical or catalog mailings.

Co-palletization - consolidates the physical bundles of mail, which have already been addressed and presorted, onto pallets. Mail that has been bundled onto pallets prior to its entry into the USPS system is discounted. Mailers qualify for greater postage discounts based on both the number of pieces that previously would NOT have been on pallets and in the number of pieces that move from sacks to pallets.

Drop-shipping - saves money on postal rates by moving the mail closer to its final destination before it is deposited with the USPS. Mailers can save additional postage costs avoiding the USPS zoned structure and taking advantage of destination entry discounts; the savings more than offsets the shipping costs.

Who Can Help?
Major printers such as RR Donnelley, Quad/Graphics, Quebecor World, Banta, Fry Communications, and others offer co-mailing services to their own printing customers and will take finished periodicals from smaller printers to add to their distribution pools.

For the first time, there is now a third-party distribution company serving small to medium printers that produce short run and small circulation magazines and catalogs. This year, Print and Mailing Solutions, LLC, a division of ALG WorldWide Logistics launched an independent co-mailing service.

{content snipped}
Ms. Nickel-Kailing is also an author, journalist, and nationally recognized speaker regarding printing and mailing, including web-to-print, variable data printing, and direct mail. She is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire WI. She can be reached at gail@business-strategies-etc.com.

Welcome to DimBulb!

Blog address:

http://dimbulbs.blogspot.com/

Endless Loop Archival Hardware: "With OctaTrak Tape Technology, one tape can last FOREVER!!


Bet you thought you'd heard the last of 8-track tapes when you pulled that 750 feet of Steppenwolf out of your Chevy van in 1970! But now it's back, and it's not just a blast from the past, it's the Wave of the Future!


Just slip in one of our patented OctaTrak tapes, and you're good for all the revision cycles you can stand! And with our optional DualAction AudioGraphics Tape Unit, when you're sick of softening wrinkles around Liz Taylor's eyes or making that sky 'just a little bluer' when it's already 100% cyan, just slip in your old Iron Butterfly tape, and it's In-a-Gadda-da-Vida as loud as you can stand it!"

ThinkPlate Specs: "ThinkPlate employs a daring new technology perfected by Russian psionic researchers. A harmonic charge generated by an artist's visual cortex is used to create a matrix capable of exposing any digital-ready plate. Our competitor uses an inferior 'stream-of-consciousness' approach with a narrow serial bandwidth that fails under the load of complex conceptual graphics. And with upcoming improvements like our MindWander Buffer, it's only going to get better!"

words / myth / ampers & virgule:

News flash: widows are older than orphans: "But the more interesting question that arose is this: When did the term orphan first enter typsetting argot? A few of us have been looking, and so far, we’ve found widow defined in references from before 1980, but we’ve found no references to orphan that old. In theory, those of us involved in this discussion are old enough to remember when we first heard the term, but we’re also old enough to imagine we heard it many years earlier than we actually heard it.

Further, looking at examples of fine printing from before 1970, pages may be devoid of widows but there seems to have been no effort to eliminate orphans, suggesting that nobody gave the notion much thought before the advent of computerized page makeup.

So here’s your challenge: If you can find a printed definition of or reference to orphans in a typographic context from before 1990, respond in the comments with the citation. There are at least three people who are wasting time on this question, and we’d all like to be doing something more productive. Earliest citation wins a lifetime half-price subscription to this blog. (That’s lifetime of the blog, just to be clear.)"

posted by Dick Margulis at 6:34 PM 2007/07/ to his blog: http://ampersandvirgule.blogspot.com/

Designing an eBook Reader at PrintCEO Blog: "Designing an eBook Reader
Posted by Adam Dewitz on June 18, 2007

A YouTube user has posted a design proposal for an Apple-inspired ebook reader based on the Apple iPod and iTunes. The proposed reader uses dual-screens to mimic a printed book.

Would a design like this, and its incorporation into the successful Apple iPod product line make an eBook reaser more desirable?"

TÜV Product Service Industry News - 'Good progress' made with printed RFID tags:
The radio frequency identification (RFID) industry is making 'good progress' in the field of printed tag development, it has been claimed.

Speaking to delegates at a European conference, Klaus Dimmler - founder of OrganicID and event chairman - said the sector is moving forward with technology able to produce electronic tags using organic inks, reports RFID Journal.

'They're looking better and better,' he maintained, while other industry experts said that although printed tags are improving, there is some way to go before they will be commercially available.

It is hoped a low-cost option will be identified for applying the printed RFID systems directly onto packaging."

Labels: Package printing

From Gutenberg to Google: Media in Transition Conference (SocialComputingMagazine.com): "The German organizers take inspiration from Johannes Gutenberg, who as the creator of movable type they view as a 'communication machine' pioneer.

'Gutenberg was the man of his century, igniting an information revolution leading to the Renaissance,' comments Matthias Koehler. 'The printing press business is precisely where Germany’s industrial economy launched. Printing presses required precision machinery, creating Germany’s engineering industry. Research in printing inks conceived the German chemical industry. You could make the case, therefore, that Germany derived its industrial power from an information need.'

According to this line of thinking, the Internet is the new kind of movable type, facilitating a similar information revolution: falling communication costs are changing the game.

'We want to address media pros from all industries concerned with the consequences of the clash between new and old,' Koehler adds."

From induistry news on www.printplanet.com 5/1/2007

PrintPlanet.com :

"Concord Litho Prints Interactive Scent Cards for 'Laugh 'n Sniff' Episode of 'My Name is Earl'

CONCORD, N.H. - Your ticket to 'Must Smell TV' can be found in this week's issue of TV Guide, which contains an exclusive interactive scent card designed to treat fans of NBC's hit comedy 'My Name is Earl' to a unique sensory experience -- the quirky aromas of karma-obsessed Camden County.

Featuring six fragrances tied directly to the first-ever interactive 'Laugh 'n Sniff' episode's script, the scented cards were printed by Concord Litho, an independent printing company in New Hampshire, for a cross-promotional May sweeps campaign involving TV Guide, NBC, 20th Century Fox Television, and exclusive sponsor Oreo.

During the May 3 'Laugh 'n Sniff' episode, NBC will prompt viewers via on-air graphics to rub one of six corresponding numbered boxes on TV Guide's scent card, which will release aromas connected to the 'My Name Is Earl' storyline, including the smell of 'a brand-new car,' and the chocolatey-creamy signature scent of Oreo cookies. Sponsored exclusively by Oreo, this scent card is available only in TV Guide's April 30 issue, which arrives on newsstands April 26.

'Anything That's Printed Can Be Scented'"

http://www.yaleherald.com/article.php?Article=5570

BY SARAH FOOTE

After spending hours in the bowels of Beinecke and the stacks of Sterling, most seniors gain a great deal of satisfaction merely by handing their senior essays. Every year, though, some seniors refuse to let their projects go so easily. Determined to see their essays live on, some seniors forge determinedly into the world of publishing, seeking to immortalize their essays in real-world publications and to make them visible to the world outside of Yale.


COURTESY KARISSA ZIMMER
Alan Kennedy-Shaffer, DC ‘06, originally had no plans to publish his senior essay.
Publishing, however, isn’t ordinary for Yale College seniors. Unlike academics, undergraduates do not face the “publish or perish” maxim; few seniors actually embark on their senior essays aiming to publish the finished project. Alan Kennedy-Shaffer, DC ’06, a somewhat infamous former Political Science major, did not intend to publish his essay when first he began to write. Months after turning in his paper, though—and through a combination of hard work and personal investment—the new grad became the author of Denial and Deception: A Study of the Bush Administration’s Rhetorical Case for Invading Iraq.

The fact that so few students publish lends a certain mystique to the process. The very idea of publishing work as an undergraduate seems to imply an impressive intellectual capacity. However, as students who have gone through the process know, published is more about determination and persistence than an extraordinary level of intellectual genius. Getting work published requires serious legwork.

For students like Yood and Kennedy-Shaffer, who are willing to seek out publications for their work, one of the main obstacles to publishing seems to be the nature of the senior essay itself. The awkward length of the senior essay—generally from 25 to 50 pages—makes it difficult to translate into a publication. In their original form, the essays are too long to be published in scholarly journals, but too short to be printed as independent manuscripts. Yale’s own University Press said that they would be unlikely to publish senior essays due to issues with length—like most publishing companies, the Press is generally only interested in full-length manuscripts. No matter which route students take to publication, though, they will need to be willing to commit many more hours of work to their essays to condense or extend them.

Labels: commercial printing, digital printing, publishing

# posted by Dave_Mainwaring @ Monday, April 30, 2007 1 comments

WhatTheyThink.com - Print's Home Page: "The Battle for Color Supremacy



Commentary by Andrew Tribute

April 10, 2007 -- Three trends show up if one looks at the market figures of digital color printers and presses over the past year. The first is an explosion in sales in what may be termed the “Light” products. These can be classified as color printers that have a performance of between 41 and 60 Letter size pages per minute and which cost less than $100,000. The second is a drop in sales of “Mid-Market” products. These are products with a performance from 41 to 80 pages per minute and which cost under $300,000. The third, “Press” classification of products are ones with a performance in excess of 60 pages per minute and which cost more than $300,000. This area saw an increase in sales. The first “Light” classification is mainly made up of copier printers with an inbuilt scanner. Infotrends reports sales in the USA in 2006 of 26,000 such products, and 60% of these were sold into the office rather than production markets. The leading products in terms of sales in this area of the market come from Ricoh and are sold either by them or their OEM partners. Their 2006 sales have increased on 2005 figures by around 277%."

--
Andrew Tribute, is recognized internationally as one of the world's leading authorities on these subjects.

Attributes' client base comprises a large number of publishers and printers as well as a significant number of industry vendors. In most cases consulting is carried out at high level to assist such organizations in the selection and adoption of technology, or to define ongoing business strategies covering the likely future directions of the markets.

Andrew Tribute is a visiting Professor at University of the Arts London.

Reach Andy via email: tribute@attributes.co.uk.

Labels: color, commercial printing, digital printing, publishing

Apple has also decided to cash in on a major market -- look for the new iPotty - available at Toys R Us. Said Steve Jobs, "Kids should think different too."

http://members.whattheythink.com/home/dailyapril.cfm

Special Note: All these stories are presented in the true spirit of April Fool's Day. None of these stories are true, nor are they intended to reflect the strategy and intent of any real person or company. Our purpose with the April Fool's Edition is to elicit a smile, and we hope you will enjoy our spoof! We are an Equal Opportunity Offender: Our contributors name many industry companies in their stories, none of which should be taken seriously.

Labels: April Fools

From: Dave Mainwaring http://www.printplanet.com/
Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2007 5:45 AM
To: Data Driven Printing-Publishing, VDP
Subject: [vdp] Demand Aggregators, Commerce Networks

Listening to the 2007 OnDemand show videos on whattheythink.com I am hearing terminology that is new to me. I can understand EFI's new "Print to Win" tag line. However, others vendors interviews are referring to "Demand Aggregators", "Commerce Networks" as ways for printers to increase sales. What are Demand Aggregators, Commerce Networks and how do they fit into your businesses?

What Do You Think about that?
Asks
Uncle Dave Mainwaring
--
A printer's Reply:
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2007 10:35:38 -0700
Subject: RE: Demand Aggregators, Commerce Networks

Fundamentally DA's and CN's are e-commerce attempts to make money (in this case) by 'getting in between print buyers and printers.' As such, they "succeed" by ultimately reducing whatever services they e-list to commodities. Think "Priceline" vs. "Hotwire" for hotel rooms. When you think of using these, what are you searching for? Right, lowest price.

And how loyal are you that hotel you once stayed in if they don't have the lowest price next time? Exactly.

Printers interested in serving customers in one-to-one, lasting relationships are generally unimpressed by those actually promoting "commoditization." Aside from fans of dubious IPO's, still fantasizing "mindshare" guarantees profitability, "jargon of the month" doesn't impress. In the case of equipment sellers, it's a means to stimulate sales and leases of their systems/software...by implying they will generate significant business for the equipment one is being encouraged to acquire. Simply having the newest techno-print system doesn't guarantee a lessor's expertise, and savvy print buyers know this...or learn it quickly (the hard way). Those thinking these e-platforms will 'make their sales for them' are in for an unpleasant surprise: what business they may generate is typically going to come from buyers loyal only to the lowest price.

Goes back to a comment I made earlier: these folks (the system manufacturers now also touting DA's & CN's) would do better in the long run (for themselves and the printers they serve) to educate the buying public on the benefits of their technology. If you buy Brand Z...on the proposition they will generate orders for you (Wow - "no cost of sales!"), get a grip. The more equipment they place, the more printers they must list...to the point where being on any given list becomes essentially meaningless. Printers doing well are not foolish enough to rely upon aggregators...but work hard to promote their own companies and capabilities. If something floats over the transom from an aggregator, fine, but it's no kind of "plan" for success in the printing business.

--

From a Posting To: "Data Driven Printing-Publishing,

"Data Driven Publishing, VDP-PLus" is a special interest discussion forum.
This SIG is available 24x7 world wide for on-line discussions concerning
data driven publishing, (also known as : VDP, a catch-all term for any
data-driven document production technique or methodology).

The forum is FREE and a venue for:

Un-biased, real world opinions on VDP software tools from end-users.

Another, less formal (back-channel) venue for technical support from
software and hardware vendors.

Commentary from printing industry pioneers, educators and non-printing
companies adding VDP into their internal document workflows.

Discussion where all parties want to learn, discuss and debate both the
enabling technologies and the
value-creating applications that are based on the technologies.

Discussions cover very broad categories:
"What VDP "is," "how it works," "help!"' - PSP-industry dialogs.
"What VDP does" client-oriented dialogs.

Some members don't care "how;" they just want the "what it does it for me"
information. Others want to know tricks and tips, and the latest updates
and technologies in technical detail. Both are valued members.

Data driven printing is a group of process enabling technologies, nothing
more and nothing less. Generally speaking, VDP enables the "mass
customization" of documents - the ability to use mass production tools and
techniques to produce large or small quantities of documents, each of
which can be unique. DDP enables a diverse range of applications that use
customized documents in some way. The application might be a direct mail
program in which each mail piece contains information that is tailored to
address the specific interests or needs of the individual recipient. Or
it might be an application that produces a customized product brochure
based on information obtained from a prospective customer during a call
center contact. Or it may be a cross media application.

Membership is free to qualified applicants.

What better place to do industry networking.
Details on www.printplanet.com

Labels: commercial printing

ITPro: News: Cheaper printing changing publishing, says HP: "Cheaper printing changing publishing, says HP
Posted by Nicole Kobie at 4:52PM, Tuesday 17th April 2007

Digital colour printing processes lowering costs of short-run, on-demand and personalised publishing, HP told the London Book Fair today."

Advances in printer technology means short run colour jobs are no longer prohibitively expensive, HP told attendees of the London Book Fair today.

As digital colour printing gets cheaper, more and more uses are found, such as printing on demand or personalising brochures, said Guy Thompson, HP's product manager of workflow services.

"Generally, in the past, the more you printed, the lower each cost," he said. "Now you print what you need."

While this won't change how the next Harry Potter or Dan Brown novel is produced, it does mean publishers can take more chances on unknown authors or keep older books in print for longer. Before, a long print run meant risking cash up front on printing and expensive warehousing costs, but with digital printing cutting costs books can be printed as they're needed. And, with higher transportation costs, it's often cheaper to print smaller runs locally.

Thompson said if you buy a specialist book from online retailer Amazon odds are, it'll be printed just for you. "Instead of it being on the shelves, they're printing on demand," Thompson said. "They're moving from just a retailer to a printer. It's easier to print than store."

RFID industry ratifies important data-sharing standard - Applications - www.itnews.com.au: "Promoters say the new standard set of interfaces for EPC data could potentially have a greater impact than a 2004 standard that led to cheaper and better performing RFID chips..

the ratification yesterday of EPCIS could give a big boost to the RFID industry, by finally giving businesses a standard way to capture and share information collected by radio-frequency identification chips.

EPCIS, or Electronic Product Code Information Services, provides a standard set of interfaces for EPC data. Chris Adcock, president of the standards organization EPCglobal, called Monday's ratification as potentially having more impact than the 2004 release of the UHF Gen2 Passive RFID standard.

Those are big words, since the Gen2 standard led to the development of considerably cheaper and better performing Gen2 RFID chips. Executives from such companies as IBM, Proctor & Gamble, and Wal-Mart are applauding the EPCIS ratification."

WhatTheyThink.com - Print's Home Page: "WhatTheyThink Webinars offer a unique way for printing and publishing professionals to maintain their edge by attending online presentations presented by some of the industry's brightest experts. There you will find the original presentation, audio recording of the live presentation, and a PDF version of the presentation for viewing and/or printing.

To find out more about webinar sponsorship opportunities, please contact Randy Davidson at randy@whattheythink.com."

Hitting Color Series: "Hitting Color Series
The Pressroom: Hitting Color, part 5

Apr 5, 2007 1:57 PM, By Dan Remaley
Hitting color - Part 1 in a 5-part series

Mar 5, 2007 2:34 PM, By Dan Remaley

Process control best practices, a five-part series...
Color scanning: Hitting color, part 2

Mar 19, 2007 12:12 PM, By Dan Remaley

Color scanning...
Color proofing: Hitting Color, part 3

Mar 22, 2007 9:31 AM, By Dan Remaley
Film output & platemaking: Hitting Color, part 4

Mar 29, 2007 9:21 AM, By Dan Remaley

Dan Remaley has 30 years’ experience in color lithography. He is senior technical consultant of process control for PIA/GATF. Contact him at (412) 259-1814 or dremaley@piagatf.org."

Pro AV Magazine: "The RFID tags used in retail are known as passive, simply electronic circuits with no power source, such as a battery. The scanner creates an electromagnetic field that powers the data exchange, effectively pulling information, such as a product code, from the tag. That simplicity makes the tags cheap, as low as 10 cents each, depending on volume.

By comparison, MINI Motorby uses active RFID technology, similar to highway toll-collection systems, such as EZPass. Active RFID tags have a battery, which powers a mini transmitter that sends data to a reader. Active RFID can support connections over hundreds of feet, compared to the few inches or feet a passive RFID system can handle. The battery in the Motorby key fob, for instance, can last three to six years, depending on factors such as how often it uses power to communicate with a billboard."

Printronix Expands Popular Podcast Series on RFID Printing Technology: "Printronix Expands Popular Podcast Series on RFID Printing Technology

IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Printronix Inc. (NASDAQ:PTNX), the leading integrated supply-chain printing solutions manufacturer, today added original programming to its popular podcast series on radio frequency identification (RFID) printing technologies.

WHO The series is hosted by Printronix's Andrew Moore, senior
product marketing manager, and includes interviews with
RFID experts from hardware manufacturers, software
publishers, middleware providers and end-user customers of
RFID printing technologies. The newest podcasts include
interviews with George Reynolds of Avery Dennison RFID,
Dwain Farley of Enterprise Information Systems, Martyn
Mallick of Sybase Inc., James Supple of Verisign and Brad
Galles of Wells' Dairy."

RFID Journal - Seminar to Address RFID Legal and Public Policy Issues - RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) Technology News & Features: "Leading legal and policy experts will address privacy, data security, government mandates, patent liabilities and other critical issues.

April 9, 2007—International law firm McKenna Long & Aldridge and U.S. trade group Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) will cosponsor an RFID Legal and Public Policy preconference seminar at RFID Journal LIVE! 2007, being held April 30 to May 2 in Orlando, Fla., at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort. During the seminar, leading legal and policy experts will address privacy, data security, government mandates, patent liabilities and other critical issues."

WhatTheyThink.com - Print's Home Page: "The Postal Service relies on certified address-matching software to help ensure the accuracy of addresses on mail pieces that qualify for postage discounts, through the assignment of a proper nine-digit ZIP code. Beginning on August 1, 2007, the process by which a nine-digit ZIP code is added to an address will carry an additional requirement that the address include verified primary number (or delivery point) information, such as street, PO Box numbers, and Rural Route Box numbers. Addresses that do not have confirmable delivery point information will no longer be eligible for postal discounts.

'Put simply, mailers who are not prepared to meet the new delivery point requirements as of August 1, 2007, are likely to see a two-to-five percent decrease in the number of mail pieces eligible for postal discounts,' said Christopher Baker, president of Group 1 Software. 'We strongly encourage all mailers to take advantage of the consultation opportunity at NPF to educate themselves on the implications of these changes and to learn about the technologies that are available to lessen the impact of these changes on their bottom-line.'

More information on the Postal Services' August 1 address validation requirement changes, including tips for maximizing postal discounts in this new environment, are available online at www.g1.com by typing 'Address Quality Hub' into the search box."

How to Write Engagement Letters: "Managing Client Expectations

There are many ways that you and your clients can communicate the details of your consulting engagement, ranging from formal Request for Proposal (RFP) from the client with your written response, to an informal phone call or short meeting where your client decides to engage you.

The Importance of Written Communication

Regardless of how you and your client communicate, the key to a successful engagement is to set the client’s expectations, and then, at a minimum, meet those expectations, and hopefully, exceed them. The most important factor in managing the client’s expectations is to put your agreement in writing. Putting it in writing also has the side-effect of eliminating post-delivery disputes over what was expected, making your billing method highly visible to your client, and finally, reinforcing your professionalism.

The Engagement Letter – a Basic Communication

The engagement letter is the simplest form of written communication designed to clarify client expectations."

ENGAGEMENT LETTER: "The purpose of the engagement letters is, in part, to get certain things in writing to protect both parties legally. However, an equally important reason is to be genuinely certain that the prospective client (and then client) and I truly have matching expectations. I like my clients. I do not want them angry with me. The engagement letter is one way to avoid misunderstandings. Toward that end, I try to make the engagement letters readable (not lawyer-speak). I try to keep them as short as I can and still cover what needs to be covered. Typically, one of my engagement letters fills both sides of a single 8 1/2 x 11 inch sheet of paper."

Lightning Source Unveils Plans for Third Production Facility
By Cary Sherburne, Senior WTT Editor February 22, 2007 -- ... more recently, Lightning Source announced that it would be opening a second manufacturing facility in the United States. WhatTheyThink checked in with Lightning Source CEO Kirby Best to get the scoop behind all of this activity and an update on Lightning Source's strategic vision for this exciting market segment.

WTT: Kirby, as always it is a pleasure to speak with you. The last time we spoke, you indicated Lightning Source was producing about a million books a month. What type of volume are you producing these days?

KB: Our volumes haven't changed that much. When we spoke at the end of last year, we were ramping up for the Christmas season. But volumes haven't dropped off, either. What we are really seeing now is phenomenal growth in the number of titles coming into our digital database from the larger publishers?titles that we know have a certain velocity already. That is the real growth story. Ultimately, titles will drive how much volume we do in the next little while, especially the titles with better historical velocity.

WTT: How many titles would you say you have in your digital library at this point?

KB: It is a moving target, but there are about a half million titles in our library at the present time.

WTT: And how many publishers do you have on board these days?

KB: About 4,500.

WTT: When new titles come in, where are they in the life cycle?

KB: That is the fun part. It is a great mixture of frontlist and backlist titles, and a better mixture all the time from traditional and non-traditional publishers. We are currently at 63% traditional and 37% author services in terms of the books that are actually printed. The bottom line is we have now gotten over the hump and publishers now understand the value of on-demand printing and where it can fit in their business model. We don't need to spend a lot of time explaining it anymore.

{snipped}

KB: Customers were demanding better halftones in the black & white work, and we carefully watched the development of all of the printers on the market. In the end, it came down to IBM and Océ, and Océ, quite frankly, was developing a better product. It was a tough decision. We had been with IBM for nine years, and the decision to move to Océ was not taken lightly. The fact of the matter is that our analysis showed that the Océ presses print a better halftone. We will leap to an even better halftone with the next upgrade in March. We still have some of the IBMs and will be replacing them as needed. So the acquisition of the Océ presses is a combination of adding capacity and retiring IBMs.

WTT: What about color?

KB: The Océ presses are constructed to eventually print in four color, but Océ is not there yet and their work continues. . While we are not currently using the Océ machines for color, we see the 9000 producing a high grade ?business? color in the future, which was another feather in Océ's cap that helped us make the decision. In terms of color, we expect to put 10 web-fed color presses and five sheetfed color presses in the new plant.

WTT: Are you seeing new applications for color, then?

KB: Absolutely. We have entered into the color book and photo book markets, and we feel they are going to explode twice as fast as the black & white book market did. Color books are very difficult for a publisher to produce in short runs cost effectively, and our short-run capability opens tremendous new opportunity for them. In terms of photo books, this is a new product area that allows consumers a new way of showcasing and sharing their photos. Instead of having your photographs printed at Wal-Mart or Walgreens, or producing them at home on a photo printer, you can incorporate them into a beautiful hardcover book, commemorating soccer teams, birthdays, anniversaries, family reunions, all sorts of important life events. And you can have a beautiful, sewn hardcover book for about $30.

WTT: How does Lightning Source fit in?

KB: We divide the industry into three buckets. The first is the traditional big boxes?Walgreens, Sears, Wal-Mart?where you might take photos for processing. In the second bucket, are companies who have written software that allows photographs to be imposed into a product. A lot of these are online. And in the third bucket, are companies that actually make the products, such as a mug, mouse pad or photo book. Shutterfly, as an example, operates in all three areas. We only want to operate in the final bucket, and we are working with software providers to incorporate a ?powered by Lightning Source? logo into their software, making us the default producer of these books. One provider in Europe is producing more than 6,000 photo books a day, and these companies need the scalability of Lightning Source.

WhatTheyThink.com Acquires Electronic Publishing,

Electronic Publishing Subscribers Now Part of Expanding WhatTheyThink.com Community

- WhatTheyThink.com's circulation expands to over 45,000 with acquisition of Electronic Publishing

Lexington, KY and Tulsa OK ? February 19, 2007 ? WhatTheyThink.com, the leading online publication serving the printing and publishing industry, today announced the acquisition of Electronic Publishing. The purchase expands WhatTheyThink.com?s subscriber base from 15,000 to over 45,000 subscribers. Terms of the purchase were not disclosed.

Electronic Publishing, a 30-year old publication owned by PennWell Corp, provides design, printing and publishing professionals with authoritative information on technology, products and trends. In 2006, PennWell eliminated the printed edition of Electronic Publishing to focus on the digital distribution of content via the website, webcasts, and email newsletters. Electronic Publishing is well known for reporting on and analyzing new directions in prepress and printing products and business technology.

WhatTheyThink.com will integrate Electronic Publishing?s assets immediately. ?Over the past three decades Electronic Publishing has served its readers with cutting edge content and analysis,? said Randy Davidson, President of WhatTheyThink.com. ?I am confident we will be able to build on this tradition and serve Electronic Publishing?s subscribers with timely news, commentary, research and much more.?

Keith Hevenor, who has served as Editor of Electronic Publishing for many years, will remain at PennWell as Editorial and Conference Director for CMM International, the leading event for professionals in the converting and package printing industries. "I have enjoyed serving as Editor of Electronic Publishing for the past eight years. WhatTheyThink.com is a great match for Electronic Publishing?s readers as they provide comprehensive coverage of the printing industry on a daily basis."

Electronic Publishing was founded in 1977 by industry veteran Frank Romano. Romano is an important contributor to WhatTheyThink.com providing commentary and analysis in a weekly column entitled ?Fridays with Frank?. Romano also hosts webinars for WhatTheyThink.com. "What began on my kitchen table as a publication to unite the worlds of typesetting and word processing and then evolved to encompass CTP and digital printing and everything else is now reborn in cyberspace. The fact that Electronic Publishing is still around after all these years is amazing. The fact that I am still around is more so."

WhatTheyThink.com offers free content including daily news, reports, webinars and stock data. Electronic Publishing?s readers will receive WhatTheyThink.com?s free email newsletter and access to all free content.

About WhatTheyThink.com

WhatTheyThink.com is the print and publishing industry's leading online community. The company offers the latest industry news about practitioners, vendors, technologies, and the graphic communications business. Additionally, WhatTheyThink.com provides a robust content syndication program serving related websites.

"Naturally we want to promote print; however, we won?t promote it if we don?t think it?s the right solution for the customer.

WTT: How important are research and development to the future of Cedar Graphics?

HI: We think that research and development is critical for survival because it allows us to specialize and react quickly to or even anticipate our customers? needs. We feel strongly about developing our processes and products. Sometimes customers are the impetus to get you to provide them with products that will help them grow their business ? say, something they?ve seen at a competitor. Today, database management and information technology are critical. If a customer says, I want to give you this project but I need reports this certain way, online and in real time, you need to know that you can provide that for them. If you look at them and say, we have to do some research and it?s going to take us three months because we don?t have the infrastructure to get the job done, they?re going to move on to somebody else. The trick is to do the research, anticipate the market and stay one step ahead of the customer.






WTT: Can you offer any advice to your industry peers?

HI: The owners and upper management of successful printing companies I know remain accessible to their customers and in touch with their needs. Management can?t just turn over customer relations wholly to sales. They have to stay intimately involved. I can?t emphasize that enough. Internally, stay in touch with your employees. They are the ones who will make new technology work for you. Treat your vendors like customers. Cherish the partnerships they offer you. KBA has been a terrific partner in these installations; they were keenly interested in our success."

WhatTheyThink.com - Print's Home Page:

PrintPlanet.com | Learn - Teach - Debate : on the forefront of prepress, print production, post press, personalization printing, print buyer, consulting: "ASPT Seeks Submissions for Student Competition
Fairfax, Virginia ? The Academy of Screen Printing Technology is accepting submissions for the Student Screen Printing Awards Competition, which selects the best prints produced during the 2006-2007 school year.

'This contest is an excellent opportunity for students who want a career in the specialty imaging industry. They'll have the chance of showing their work to industry leaders,' said Dawn Hohl, SPTF Technical Training Manager.

The competition is open to secondary and post-secondary schools ? including high schools, vocational schools, technical schools, colleges and universities ? holding membership(s) for SGIA, FESPA or the Asia-Pacific Screen Printing & Graphic Imaging Association.

Students may enter samples within any category as individual work or within a team. Categories include:

- Textile ? single-color, multicolor, spot color, index and simulated process, and four-color process.

- Paper ? single-color, multicolor and four-color process

- Plastic, glass, metal or wood ? single-color, multicolor and four-color process.

- Original serigraphs on any substrate
All submitted work will be judged and displayed at SGIA '07 (Orlando, Florida; October 24-27, 2007). For more information on the contest, visit SGIA.org/aspt"

WhatTheyThink.com - "Newspapers Outsourcing Production: Is This an Escalating Trend?:

By Cary Sherburne, Senior WTT Editor

February 8, 2007 -- Recently, more stories have been appearing about newspapers outsourcing various types of production, from ad production to printing and distribution, including a recent column by Andy Tribute about newspaper trends that touched on the outsourcing issue. WhatTheyThink spoke with Michael Brady, Director of Production Operations, Technology Department, for the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) to gain an understanding of whether this is an escalating trend in the face of increasing pressure on the newspaper industry or merely choices made by a few newspaper companies.

Background

A major deal that caught our attention was the announcement in November of last year by Canada?s Transcontinental, Inc., and the venerable San Francisco Chronicle of an exclusive 15-year contract for Transcontinental to print the daily newspaper and its related products, as well as to provide complete post-press services. Transcontinental, North America's seventh-largest printer and Canada's leading newspaper printer, is slated to begin production of the Chronicle in spring 2009 in a new plant it will equip with state-of-the-art technology in the San Francisco Bay Area. Transcontinental is already printing Canadian newspapers The Globe and Mail and La Presse, as well as, in its plant in Toronto, The New York Times for the Ontario and Upstate New York markets. The San Francisco Chronicle is owned by the Hearst Corporation, which publishes some 200 magazines around the world, including Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and O, The Oprah Magazine, and owns 29 television stations which reach a combined 18% of U.S. viewers. Transcontinental has a network of Canadian 12 plants that extends from St. John?s, in Newfoundland, to Vancouver BC and prints about 200 newspapers, including some 20 dailies."

Kodak's Strategy For First Printer -- Cheaper Cartridges - WSJ.com:

By WILLIAM M. BULKELEY
February 6, 2007; Page B1

"Kodak, which is led by several veterans of H-P's printer group, plans to modify that model by making more money from hardware and accepting lower profits from the ink. It says it will use a combination of new technology and alternative pricing to slash ink prices by about 50% per page. On Tuesday, it unveiled new inkjet-based multifunction devices that print, scan and copy documents, Web pages and photos. The printers, primarily intended for home rather than business use, will be priced at $150 to $300, depending on whether they have color displays and slots for camera memory cards. Analysts said the prices are each about $50 more than comparable multifunction devices now on the market.

Each of the Kodak printers will use a $10 black-ink cartridge and a $15 color-ink cartridge -- about half the prevailing ink prices. Kodak says consumers who buy high-volume paper packages will be able to print 4-inch-by-6-inch snapshots for as little as 10 cents apiece -- compared with 29 cents on typical home printers and well under common retail-store prices of 19 cents each."

WhatTheyThink.com - A Better Way to Preview Complex Print:

Andy Tribute wrote:
"As a part of this event on day one there was a mini exhibition of all Esko?s systems to update the sales and support people on what all the products and systems could do. At this exhibition I came across an interesting company I had heard about but not seen before who were negotiating an exclusive distribution agreement for Esko to sell their product into the worldwide pre-production packaging market.
The potential for the use of PrintDevizor in packaging is very obvious and having seen how well it integrates in the Esko Scope applications I can envisage it will become used by a large number of Esko?s customers and their clients.

The company is Stonecube from the UK, and their product was PrintyDevizor, a dynamic print visualizer. This product will be tightly integrated into the Esko Scope solution to allow creative staff and packaging print purchasers to visualize how a print job would look on the package. This is not just visualizing how the normal printed inks will appear but will allow in real-time the package to be viewed while different effects like embossing, special inks, varnishes, etc using different substrates are seen under different lighting conditions.

PrintDevizer is not new and the version I saw was version 2.2. It is already used in job creation and production by many companies, perhaps the best known of which is Hallmark Cards. What I saw was very unique piece of software that does things no other program I know of can do. The program is a unique software tool for both Mac and PC that allows on-screen viewing of moving 3D views of print designs under real-world lighting conditions. It allows the user to see the effects of different substrates, inks and finishes, even metallic and fluorescent inks, foils and embossing. The program is available at two levels, the first being PrintDevizer standard edition that is targeted at everyone in design and print. The second is PrintDevizer Pro that has extra features essential for packaging, labels, greeting cards and print finishing. The software supports special finish libraries for Adobe Creative Suite and Quark XPress. It also supports the Pantone Matching System including metallic and high intensity inks. Other special ink approaches such as MetalFX are also supported and other special inks can be added into the system. In the Pro mode it also supports viewing of die cutting and transparent materials."

The full article in on www.whattheythink.com

Attributes Associates is an internationally oriented consulting company specializing in marketing and technology issues for the printing, publishing and media markets. The Managing Partner of Attributes Associates is Andrew Tribute, who is recognized internationally as one of the world's leading authorities on these industries and subjects.

Margie Dana shares her "Print Tips Column" with the PrintPlanet forums.
Take a moment to read. Then discuss and debate the content on the
printbuyer discussion forum on printplanet.com.

Margie writes:

If you're in business, you handle envelopes. Long and lean or short
and squat, the envelope is in your face with every mail delivery. It
would take time and tens of thousands of words to cover all there is
to know about envelopes - from manufacturing to printing to paper
issues, plus design tips and postal concerns. I dare not attempt that
here and now.

But for new print-buying professionals, envelopes present a bit of
mystery. Where do they come from, anyway? I remember starting out in
print production at Boston University's Office of Publications
Production. It was way back in the '80s (and I had the hairstyle to
match). I assumed that envelopes came from the print shop. Well, they
do and they don't.

Printers don't make envelopes. They print them.

Envelope manufacturers make envelopes, by converting paper into
envelopes. I had a conversation about this with Paul Raymond of Bruen
Printing & Envelope in Ashland, MA. He was quite enlightening.

WORCESTER, MA, A MECCA
In New England alone, there are three very large envelope
manufacturers: Worcester Envelope and National Envelope, both in
Worcester, along with Mead/Westvaco Envelope in Enfield, CT. I
learned there are several smaller ones, too. Raymond tells me that
National is the largest privately owned envelope manufacturer in the
country. It also owns Old Colony Envelope near Springfield, among others.

It turns out that Worcester, MA, is quite the Mecca of envelope
manufacturing. The first successful envelope machine was patented by
Dr. Russell Hawes in Worcester back in 1853. Also, the first
mechanical self-gumming envelope folding machine was developed by
Henry and David Swift, also of Worcester. Raymond thinks that at one
time, the Worcester area had more envelope manufacturers than the
rest of New England combined (doesn't it still?). In addition to the
two mentioned above, Sheppard Envelope and Classic Envelope are in or
near this central MA city.

WORK WITH YOUR PRINTER
Typically, customers (end users, that is) don't deal with envelope
manufacturers. They leave this to their printers. Most printers buy
their envelopes from paper merchants as they do most of their other
paper supplies. Others simply outsource the entire envelope project
to envelope specialty printers, who have equipment specifically
designed for printing nearly any variety or style of envelope.

If you're designing a job that will require a custom envelope, that's
a different issue. You want to learn about standard sizes (among
other things), which will keep your costs down. Printers who do a lot
of envelope printing can guide you, so talk with them early to avoid
costly problems.

OPTIONS GALORE
Envelopes have their own terminology. There are Baronial envelopes
(pointy flaps) and A-size envelopes (square or straight flaps), for
example. Catalog envelopes have the flap on the short dimension,
while booklet envelopes have them on the long side.

When you're measuring an envelope, always quote the smaller dimension
first and then the larger one. The same applies when measuring a
custom window, advised Raymond: height first, length, position from
the left and from the bottom. When measuring for a custom window,
always position the envelope with the flap at the top to ensure
accuracy. Ask for a mockup proof of the envelope.

There are many different flap styles, seam styles, and sealing
methods for envelopes. Don't get me started on window options - there are tons.

TRADE ASSOCIATIONS
There's a major US trade association devoted to the manufacture of
envelopes, at http://mdana.c.topica.com/maafG15abwkcLa6dwTObaeQyjU/ ,
the site of the Envelope Manufacturers Association. I found some
interesting statistics on this site, including annual US envelope
shipments and sales.

At the end of 2005, there were about 195 billion envelopes
manufactured in the US. Compare that to 1995, when there were 168
billion envelopes manufactured, or to 1985, when 150 billion were made.

I've been to many printing facilities, but never to an envelope
manufacturer. I guess a road trip out to Worcester, MA, is in order.
Let me thank Paul Raymond of Bruen Printing & Envelope for his
enlightenment on the envelope. Bruen's web address is
http://mdana.c.topica.com/maafG15abwkcMa6dwTObaeQyjU/ , and their
phone is 800.852.2226. Yes, they do envelopes. They PRINT them, that
is, on something called a Jet press (not to be confused with an
ink-jet press), manufactured by Halm Industries (
http://mdana.c.topica.com/maafG15abwkcNa6dwTObaeQyjU/ ).

Standard or custom, printed from stock or printed and converted,
envelopes deserve close attention when you produce them, or else you
could overspend. And they don't grow on trees. Technically speaking.

==
About Margie Dana had a career as a corporate print buyer. She was
never a printer and never worked for a printer. However she
"Parlez-Vous Printing" in plain English. Margie Dana is the founder
of the Boston-area Print Buyers Club. Located in Newton, Ma, she can
be found at http://www.bostonprintbuyers.com/ and reached privately
by email at mdana@bostonprintbuyers.com

WhatTheyThink.com - "Is Personalization Cracking the Foundations of Society?:

One might get that impression from an article in Advertising Age. While many points the author attempts to make are needlessly alarmist or wrong, it reminded me of the book from 2000 titled Bowling Alone. The book's website is still active. The author, Robert Putnam of Harvard, as the site states, ?draws on evidence including nearly 500,000 interviews over the last quarter century to show that we sign fewer petitions, belong to fewer organizations that meet, know our neighbors less, meet with friends less frequently, and even socialize with our families less often.? The point to me is that geography is no longer a factor in determining with whom we socialize. Time is less of an issue as people adjust work schedules and leisure time to meet their needs. Using tools like Skype and instant messaging, we can meet with friends and acquaintances who share deep interests, and not be limited by where we live. We may bowl alone, but we may also compare scores with people around the world.

At the core of this for personalization is data: narrow market segmentation cannot be executed without it. But as the Advertising Age article states, any individual should be able to ?watch a dog-food commercial even if she doesn't currently have a dog.? This goes to a bigger marketing point: what good is branding if you only target people who use your products at only this very moment? You can't build brand equity without a consistent program that increases familiarity among people who may become your customers tomorrow. Personalized marketing is based on historical patterns, not future ones, and is likely to miss significant future opportunity."

While personalization technologies do offer significant benefits, it is important that communicators and marketers realize that they need a blend of approaches in their media mix. This even applies to trade shows. I know that there are companies who are seriously considering skipping shows, and replacing that budget line item with customer events, even if they have to fly customers great distances and put them up in hotels. This is understandable in light of the high costs of shows, in both dollars and time. Yet, trade events serve a larger branding purpose that is underestimated in situations where quarter-to-quarter becomes paramount. Any business that cannot engage in long-term brand development because the next quarter is looming is reducing its capacity for long-term growth. The all-too-often-heard comment, ?unless we have sales now there won't be a company five years from now? may seem insightful, but it is defeatist. All that is really being said is that there is a preference to live from quarter to quarter, and that brand building and marketing are useless. If that were the case, sales reps would not have to explain what their companies stand for and how they differ from competitors. Few people realize that a sales call is the ultimate in personalization and that you can't make a credible sales call without good market-wide branding behind it. This marketing stuff actually works."

Full report http://members.whattheythink.com/drjoewebb/drjoe173.cfm
Mondays with Dr. Joe Web, 5Feb2007

Boston Print Buyers - Margie's Print Tips What Lies Ahead for the US Print Market?
Part 1:

Davis and Ed Gleeson (an economic and market research analyst for PIA/GATF) authored a market overview report entitled, "Navigating Print Markets in 2007-2008."* This report was the basis of Davis' recent presentation.

"Halt, Who Grows There

The most popular form of printing - ink-on-paper - is experiencing slow growth, which will continue. Digital printing is experiencing strong growth. Davis predicts it will grow at twice the rate of ink-on-paper.

Go back and read this last sentence again. Are any of you surprised? You shouldn't be. In all of the surveys I've conducted, digital color printing is the one type of printing that every print buyer purchases.

The print industry tracks the US economy, so if our economy enters a period of slow growth, so will printing. A slowdown in the growth rate of both is expected over the next 12-24 months, and Davis advised printers to plan their businesses accordingly.

He then listed four different reasons for recovery in the industry:

1. Strong economic growth
2. Presidential elections
3. The rebound of advertising
4. Stable postage rates

Key Market Segments

Davis highlighted specific print market segments in terms of economic projections. The four top segments in terms of 2007 growth potential, according to PIA/GATF, are as follows:

1. Direct Marketing (1.5% - 2.5%)
2. Labels/Wrappers Printing (1.5% - 2%)
3. Packaging (1.5% - 2%)
4. Catalog Printing (1% - 1.5%)

General Commercial Printing, Periodicals/Magazines, and Book printing all weighed in at a projected 1% growth this year, while the last two categories show negative growth (Directories at 0% to -0.5% and Business Forms at -3% to -4%).

The US print industry loses about 1000 printing companies each year. From a high of 54,000 in 1994, we are now down to 40,000 US printing plants. Interestingly, the average plant size is growing, because the companies that cease operating tend to be the smaller ones. Today, said Davis, the average US print facility employs 27 people.

Davis predicts that the overall sales in printing for 2006 will be up 2.5%, as compared to the GDP growth of 3.3%."

This snippet from: http://www.bostonprintbuyers.com/printtips/07-01-22.html
--

About Margie Dana had a career as a corporate print buyer. She was never a printer and never worked for a printer. However she "Parlez-Vous Printing" in plain English. Margie Dana is the founder of the Boston-area Print Buyers Club. Located in Newton, Ma, she can be found at http://www.bostonprintbuyers.com/ and reached privately by email at mdana@bostonprintbuyers.com

Boston Print Buyers - Margie's Print Tips:

" What Lies Ahead for the US Print Market? by Margie Dana

"... key findings about the print industry market, based on a recent presentation by Ron Davis. Davis is the Chief Economist for PIA/GATF (Printing Industries of America/Graphic Arts Technical Foundation).

Economist Davis prefaced his predictions with, 'I hope I'm wrong.' He predicts an economic slowdown for 2007-08 like so:

2006: 3.3%
2007: 1.5%
2008: 2.5%

5 Opportunities, 3 Threats

Davis went on to list the major opportunities and threats to today's printers for the next few years.

The 5 major opportunities are:

1. Survival of the fittest - the companies with strong balance sheets, well-trained employees, strong customer relationships, and strategic vision will survive.
2. Digital printing - even though digital/toner-based printing is only about 10% of total print shipments right now, it's been growing twice as fast as ink-on-paper shipments. This will continue.
3. Ancillary services - such sales have grown faster than ink-on-paper sales for a few years already. Included in this category are mailing and fulfillment services.
4. Market segments - printers in certain segments are predicted to show the most growth. These segments are direct marketing, labels/wrappers, packaging, and catalogs.
5. Improved management performance - according to PIA/GATF, print industry profit leaders consistently outperform other printers in good times AND in bad. An interesting aside: these leaders outspend other printers in one category: education and training. Today's print profit leaders develop strategic positioning.

The 3 threats to US printers are:

1. Slowing economy and print market growth - Davis noted that recessions come about every 10 years, and we're entering the 7th year in this cycle. If the US economy enters a recession, 'print markets will be more seriously impacted in a negative direction than the economy as a whole,' according to Davis' report, 'Navigating Print Markets in 2007-2008: An Environmental Scan of the Economy and Printing Markets for 2007-2008.'*
2. Cost pressures - particularly in wages/salaries, paper prices, health care, and energy costs.
3. Continued intense competition and pricing pressure - there are 40,000 printers in this country. That's competition."

--
Full story on http://www.bostonprintbuyers.com/printtips/index.html

About Margie Dana was never a printer and never worked for a printer. However she "Parlez-Vous Printing" in plain English. Margie Dana is the founder of the Boston-area Print Buyers Club. Located in Newton, Ma, she can be found at http://www.bostonprintbuyers.com/ and reached privately by email at mdana@bostonprintbuyers.com

CIP4 and Ryerson announce JDF 101 Education Event : packagePrinting: "CIP4 and Ryerson announce JDF 101 Education Event
January 05, 2007

TORONTO, Ontario?The International Cooperation for the Integration of Processes in Prepress, Press and Postpress (CIP4) organization and Ryerson University announced a free ?JDF Education Event? to be held at Ryerson University in Toronto on Tuesday, 20 February 2007.

This one-day program will cover all aspects of print process automation, CIP4 and the Job Definition Format (JDF), and is hosted by Ryerson University?s School of Graphic Communications Management. This JDF 101 Education Event is the first of its kind in Canada. Speakers will identify the benefits of JDF-enabled process automation experienced by small and medium-sized commercial offset and digital printers, and will provide an introduction to how JDF works, and its function in the modern printing plant. Speakers include:
? Mark Wilton, CIP4 Education and Marketing & Global Initiative Manager at Kodak Graphic Communications

? James Harvey, Executive Director of CIP4 Organization

? Patrick Bolan, President and CEO of Avanti Computer Systems

? Tim Hassan, National Digital Solutions Systems Specialist at AGFA Graphics Canada

? Dr Abhay Sharma, Chair of Ryerson University?s School of Graphic Communications Management

The JDF specification is intended to enable the entire industry, including designers, publishers, printing and graphic arts companies, and others to work with software and systems from different manufacturers in an integrated workflow facilitated by a common data interchange syntax."

CIP4 - What does CIP4 stand for? Acronyms and abbreviations by the Free Online Dictionary.: "Acronym Definition
CIP4 International Cooperation for Integration of Processes in Prepress, Press, and Postpress (formerly CIP3)"

Our thanks to whattheythink.com -

Getting personal By Frank Romano, February 2, 2007 -- - For Premium Access Members

The world of 1:1 has moved way beyond direct mail. You can now get your name or other personal text on just about anything from baked goods (scone to scone printing?), labels, candy, and more. Here are a few new approaches to personalization:

Chocolate candies
Print your photo or any other artwork on chocolate candies.
http://www.chocolographyboutique.com

Ketchup and mustard bottle labels
Put your own words on a Heinz ketchup and mustard bottle label.
http://myheinz.com

Wine
Select a wine and design your own label from a palette of choices.
http://www.personalwine.com

Soda pop
Select a flavor of Jones Soda and upload a digital photo for the label. You can also write a message for the label on the back of the bottle.
http://http://myjones.com

Branded steak
Pick the letters you want and they come pre-branded on each steak so guests know that you grilled their meat.
logo on a brand.
http://www.texasirons.com

M&Ms
One side is yours to customize. You get two lines, 8 characters maximum per line. You can even get your logo printed instead of the text. The other side will have the famous "m." They say you can have your company colors but don't expect the Pantone set.
http://www.mymms.com/business22

Wheaties box
Send in a photo and have it printed on a box of Wheaties. I have one and it is pretty neat.
http://www.wheatiestrophy.com

Postage stamps
Upload a digital picture and it is printed onto stamps acceptable to the U.S. postal service. They are pressure sensitive and no licking is needed.
http://photostamps.com

Custom labels
Put your name on elegant custom-designed labels, favor tags and coasters to create beautiful personalized wedding and party favors, food or craft gifts, bath creations, wedding CDs and DVDs, baby announcement CDs and more. Create book plates or serve your personal coasters to guests at dinner parties.
http://www.myownlabels.com

Personalized Halloween cookies
Gingerbread jack-o'-lantern cookies for your favorite little ghosts. The treats are then individually decorated and personalized with up to eight characters, including spaces.

Personalized whirly pops
Each sucker is 3 or 4 inches in diameter and are personalized with your choice of any design from the website and tied off with coordinating curled ribbons.
You can even add a photograph or logo.
http://www.personalizedsweets.com/

Personalized perambulator
Graco unveiled a limited edition Graco Mosaic stroller custom printed by First2Print, a large-format fabric printing service.
http://www.first2print.com/textile_printing_news/Graco.php

And the winner for the most personalized product goes to art created from your DNA:
DNA 11 creates unique, high-end abstract art from DNA. Each individual piece of art is a one-of-a-kind stylized artistic representation of a person's genetic fingerprint. With a wide selection of colors and styles from which to choose, customers can customize the piece to reflect their personalities and best suit their home or office décor. Creating your own DNA Portrait is simple:

Step 1: Select your color and size options from online store.
Step 2: DNA 11 sends you a collection kit with instructions.
Step 3: Follow the step-by-step directions and send your DNA sample back to DNA labs using pre-addressed envelope.
Step 4: Your DNA sample is processed in a secure lab: DNA is extracted and run it on a "gel," then the gel is photographed using a special camera.
Step 5: DNA digitally enhances and customizes your DNA fingerprint. They then print your art piece on the highest quality canvas using our in house Giclee printer.
Step 6: Each art piece is visually inspected. Your art is then hand varnished and signed on the back by the founders of DNA 11.
Step 7: Your art piece is shipped rolled in a protective tube.
Step 8: You are accused of murdering Jimmy Hoffa in Michigan in 1975 (only kidding).
http://www.dna11.com

Lost in translation: The dark center of personalized food printing
Aunt Elsa was supposed to receive a customized cake from Wegmans Supermarket to celebrate her birthday. The part-English, part-Italian message was e-mailed into Wegmans and their digital cake printer (flatbread inkjet?). But the system had a disconnect with non-English glyphs. Why no one actually looked at the cake before sending it out is beyond us; although, cake proofreading is not a common occupation. Nevertheless, Aunt Elsa had a cake with a strange birthday message, and we presume even the 'supportEmptyParas' was tasty if not tasteful.

What font goes best with bakery products? Butter Scotch Bold.
http://members.whattheythink.com/images/frank012.jpg
--

What do you think? Please send feedback to Frank by e-mailing him at fxrppr@rit.edu

Frank Romano has spent over 40 years in the printing and publishing industries. Many know him best as the editor of the International Paper Pocket Pal or from the hundreds of articles he has written for publications from North America and Europe to the Middle East to Asia and Australia.

He is the author of over 44 books, including the 10,000-term Encyclopedia of Graphic Communications (with Richard Romano), the standard reference in the field. His books on QuarkXPress, Adobe InDesign, and PDF workflow were among the first in their fields. He has authored most of the books on digital printing. His latest book is the 800-page textbook for Moscow State University.

He has founded eight publications, serving as publisher or editor for TypeWorld/Electronic Publishing (which ended in its 30th year of publication), Computer Artist, Color Publishing, The Typographer, EP&P, and both the NCPA and PrintRIT Journals. His columns appear monthly in the Digital Printing Report. He is the editor of the EDSF Report.

Romano lectures extensively, having addressed virtually every club, association, group, and professional organization at one time or another. He is one of the industry's foremost keynote speakers.

He has consulted for major corporations, publishers, government, and other users of digital printing and publishing technology. He wrote the first report on on-demand digital printing in 1980 and ran the first conference on the subject in 1985. He has conceptualized many of the workflow and applications techniques of the industry and was the principal researcher on the landmark EDSF study, Printing in the Age of the Web and Beyond.

He has been quoted in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Times of London, USA Today, Business Week, Forbes, and many other newspapers and publications, as well as on TV and radio. He has partnered with InfoTrends on strategic information for the printing industry.

He continues to teach courses at RIT and other universities and works with students on unique research projects.

- Unlimited formats for personalized URLs pointed to the domain of choice.
- Microsite creation and management using Adobe Dreamweaver.
- Database integration with Microsoft CRM, salesforce.com, GoldMine, ACT, and other SFA/CRM systems.
- External integration with such systems as templatemonster.com, surveymonkey.com,cevents.com, myspaces.com, Microsoft Live, and similar "build a survey," event registration, or other applications.
- Functionality accessibility through XML Web services.
- Additional controls for Microsoft Visual Studio to simplify API calls.
- Flexible reporting based on ASP.net user controls and Microsoft SQL Reporting Services.
--
PrintPlanet.com Industry News
February 2, 2007 - Printable Technologies, Inc.,today announced the acquisition of certain assets of Prospect Smarter Inc. to create the full spectrum of marketing campaign management tools. The combination of Printable Technologies' powerful data-driven direct mail solution and the sophisticated cross-media tools and workflow from Prospect Smarter goes beyond personalized URLs, beyond microsites, and beyond simple surveys and "thank you" emails to deliver a complete marketing campaign execution solution and the means to track the ROI of marketing campaigns.

"We listened to our clients tell us that they need the means to integrate on-line and off-line customer communication," said Coleman Kane, President/CEO of Printable Technologies. "We surveyed the marketplace for the best-of-breed multi-channel applications and discovered that no one offered the broad range of functionality available with the Prospect Smarter software. The combined solution gives our clients a marketing campaign execution platform that is both data-driven and event-driven and provides a broad selection of back-end reporting capabilities."

"Users are no longer limited to templated solutions that require them to fit their campaign workflow into a rigid process," Kane continued. "Our clients can now implement a solution that is based on their own business processes and workflow. Microsites can be as varied and unique as desired, and are easily managed through Macromedia Dreamweaver from Adobe, an industry-standard application.

"And having the ability to reference multiple relational databases ensures that the content is truly relevant. More important, the ability to integrate with ERP or SFA applications and provide real-time click-through results allows the user to trigger backend activities such as outbound telemarketing, e-mail responses, or other event-driven customer communication. It is the backend, 'closed-loop' response management and reporting that sets this platform apart from the applications currently offered."

"There are so many other solutions available on the market that are made up of disparate systems from multiple providers," said Steve Tingiris, President/CEO, Prospect Smarter, "which means that it is the user's responsibility to make them work together. This combination of technology into one platform from one provider is a real advantage. When we began to look 'under the hood' at the technology combination, we liked what we saw so much that we are now a Printable Technologies FusionPro Server customer. I want the best tools for my business, and this platform is truly best-of-breed; it's a solution that adapts to my customers' needs."

Sophisticated Technology/Flexible Solution
The Prospect Smarter technology introduces an extensive range of new functionality to the Printable Technologies multi-channel marketing platform, including:

- Unlimited formats for personalized URLs pointed to the domain of choice.
- Microsite creation and management using Adobe Dreamweaver.
- Database integration with Microsoft CRM, salesforce.com, GoldMine, ACT, and other SFA/CRM systems.
- External integration with such systems as templatemonster.com, surveymonkey.com, cevents.com, myspaces.com, Microsoft Live, and similar "build a survey," event registration, or other applications.
- Functionality accessibility through XML Web services.
- Additional controls for Microsoft Visual Studio to simplify API calls.
- Flexible reporting based on ASP.net user controls and Microsoft SQL Reporting Services.

bob turner-metadata-digital asset management-dam-aaf-omf-umid-mxf-xml:

"Metadata or data about data are the bits of that stream that complement the essence media and may include such data as timecode, sync, blanking, and color burst information.

Metadata may also include all sorts of descriptive data, such as where the sources originated, how they are composited, where the sources are located on the server or library, the type of special effects incorporated in the edited sequence, how the program is to be distributed, interactive authoring information, frame rates and aspect ratios, how to play this video in various playback devices, digital rights management, etc.

Media asset management (or the IT term DAM for digital asset management) is one of the fastest areas of development in postproduction today. Both displayed products and discussions of media asset management were dominant aspects of the recent NAB convention. In order to provide better communication and understanding, here are a few of the terms commonly used in these discussions and by media asset software manufacturers.

Note that a few of these are far more important to engineers or code-writers and less relevant to those of us who use the equipment or software they develop. But since the terms and acronyms appear before us from time to time, it is good to know what they mean."

NAA®: TechNews - Digital Asset Management 101:

"If you decide to shop for a digital asset management system, keep the following questions in mind:

Is it customizable? No matter how feature-rich an asset manager is, you?ll need to mold it to the way you work.

Is it relational? Make sure that whatever you store in your asset manager has links to any and all related media.

Is it secure? Lots of different people?both inside and outside your organization?may need access to your media. Make sure you can control who gets to see what, and that your information is secure as it travels among computers.

Is it flexible? You should get client software allowing you to access your media on a Macintosh or PC. And you should be able to easily convert file formats so people on different computers can use it.

If you decide not to shop for a digital asset management system, third-party companies can organize and store your data for you. Some are specialized companies that do nothing but manage clients? media on their huge servers. Others are the same printers and service bureaus you may currently use for scanning, color correcting and/or printing.

Before settling on a service provider, at least check to see how much it would cost to buy and maintain your own system. The companies are as new as the software itself, so the time and money savings will vary greatly from provider to provider. Do your homework.

Brad Grimes is a senior editor for PC World magazine in Boston. E-mail, brad_grimes@ pcworld.com."

Digital Asset Management: The Product Landscape -- CMS Watch:
"Digital Asset Management: The Product Landscape
by Chris Lynn
23-Aug-2002

Digital Asset Management ('DAM') has been around for a decade or more, but it is only in the last couple of years that mainstream I.T. analysts and reporters have paid much attention to it. In the meantime, some very powerful asset management technologies have emerged, but DAM is likely to play only a supporting role in larger corporate 'enterprise content management' (ECM) frameworks.

The Emergence of DAM

The term Digital Asset Management arose from the printing and publishing industry, and its variant, Media Asset Management (MAM) from the broadcast industry. CNN uses a system from IBM and Sony to manage their news archive, and large printers such as R.R.Donnelley have multiple DAM systems for storing and retrieving their clients? print ads, magazine pages, and catalogs. Even small ($5m annual revenues) pre-press shops will often have a hundred thousand dollars? worth of DAM software running on a server with a terabyte or more of RAID storage. This is no small investment, but one that is justified by the productivity gains that can accrue from the system, by the increased switching costs to help lock a client in, and ? as clients are given web-based access to their assets ? by the potential for incremental revenues.

But DAM remained a niche market until relatively recently, when several factors coincided to drive it toward the mainstream:

* The availability to low-cost storage to hold rich-media files online
* High-speed connectivity, both on the LAN and across the Internet, making the digital transfer of such files feasible
* The general 'democratization' caused by technology, so that work that was previously contracted out to a specialist can be done by the generalist user (of course, this has driven Web Content Management ? WCM ? as well).
* The desire of corporate marketing groups to become more efficient
* The beginnings of a confluence among document management, content management, knowledge management and DAM (of which more later)"

Electronic Publishing - Cross-media convergence: {2003}

"Nearly all customers shop through multiple channels, such as brick-and-mortar stores, telephone- and mail-order catalogs, websites, and more. And the desire to purchase is often goaded by multiple media, whether print or Internet advertisements, hard-copy and online catalogs, trade-show and point-of-purchase displays, e-flyers, direct-mail pieces, and the like. As long as these trends continue, cross-media publishing is here to stay. Today, most retailers and distributors are overwhelmed by the number of disparate channels, systems, and projects they have to support.

'Most businesses are managing point-of-sale, catalog, flyer, and e-flyer projects; feeding CRM and DAM systems with product information; supplying e-catalog information to an e-procurement system; and synchronizing it all,' says Martin Le Sauteur, Flow Systems' CEO. 'Managing product information is one thing, but the ability to leverage and publish it over multiple channels is a big challenge for most companies. We wrap tools around our product information management system to distribute product information and drive sales.'"

DAM Options - Jan 2006:

"DAM Options

Reviewing the solutions for incorporating digital asset management into your workflow.

By Wendell Benedetti

Whether operating a one-person firm or working for a multi-national corporation, it?s extremely important that electronic assets such as images, graphics, documents, and various types of archives are organized and managed correctly. They could be any thing from simple text files and individual digital images to complex PDF and Postscript documents, to computer presentations, or complete video productions. Some have been generated from hard copy documents and photographs, others are created entirely on the computer.

Regardless of how it?s created, an image or document that can?t be found and retrieved is useless. Finding and retrieving electronic assets can take time, especially for businesses that are spread across multiple sites, states or even countries. If it isn?t done correctly, asset management is a time consuming and potentially expensive proposition.

Digital Asset Management (DAM) applications make sure that electronic assets are organized, filed, and retrieved accurately and systematically. They not only save valuable time, they save money. In fact, they give companies the ability to leverage their valuable assets to create additional revenue streams.

While some DAM applications deal with historical documents and records, a growing number are designed to become part of a company?s real-time workflow. Images, text, video, and graphics files that would otherwise have been buried in archives are now being distributed and re-used as part of the primary workflow. This added functionality has been especially beneficial for companies that generate, store, and distribute content on a daily basis, such as motion picture studios, publishing houses, television networks, newspapers, and magazines.

To accommodate this growing use of DAM technology, software companies have developed and refined their products for real-time applications. The type of vendors and the products they produce vary widely. Some make generic solutions that are scalable. Others make specific software solutions that fit the needs of specific vertical markets."

WhatTheyThink.com - Marketing Efforts into the Future:


"A client hosting a New York education seminar tapped Today?s Graphics for a fast-turnaround, high-quality marketing campaign. In the two days following its seminar, the client used Today?s Graphics to print more than 200 personalized photo albums featuring seminar snapshots. Today?s Graphics also provided the multimedia design for a Web page with seminar highlights video that went live as the books were mailed.

Among the most notable projects being printed on Today?s Graphics? new HP Indigo press is a 4,000-monthly self-mailer project where each mailer has a personalized URL (purl). Each purl leads to a one-minute online video demonstrating the client?s publishing service. Because of the high level of response to this effort, Today?s Graphics is scheduled to begin producing a second, similar campaign for the same client next year."

Introduction to Persistent Uniform Resource Locators: "What resources should have PURLs?

Users should assign a PURL to any discrete resource for which reliable access over time is desired. For example, a home page, an electronic journal, an individual article, or a paper are good candidates for a persistent name. Some dynamic resources such as 'today's newspaper' or 'closing price of Foo stock' are also good candidates.

Nondiscrete resources such as sections within a document or charts or graphics that would not make sense outside the context of their containing document are not good candidates for PURLs. Temporary resources are also poor candidates.

Objects at the top of hierarchies of objects that might be moved as a unit are excellent partial redirect candidates. Depending on the underlying nature of the hierarchy, the lower-level objects may not require PURLs. For example, if the hypertext object hierarchy corresponds closely to the hierarchy of the objects in the underlying file system and the hypertext links are relative links based on the file system hierarchy, then a single PURL for the top-level object in the hierarchy is all that may be necessary.

To create a PURL, point a Web browser to a PURL Resolver and follow the resolver's instructions for creating a PURL. PURL Resolvers provide a form to fill out to create a PURL. This form should provide a default public domain with universal write access.
Maintaining PURLs

PURLs are not updated automatically when their associated URL changes unless some outside process is run to notify the corresponding PURL Resolver. A maintainer must update the information in the appropriate PURL Server when the associated URL changes. It is the responsibility of a PURL's owner and its maintainers to update the PURL when the associated URL changes.

PURL maintenance can be performed by connecting to a PURL Resolver using a Web browser and then using the PURL Resolver's maintenance forms to make the appropriate changes to the desired PURL. Only authorized PURL maintainers can modify a PURL.

A PURL maintainer can turn off PURL resolution. This is done by entering a new, empty, URL on the PURL maintenance form for the PURL in question. This will cause a history page to be returned when resolution of the PURL is attempted. A history page for a PURL contains administrative information accumulated over time and details about past associated URLs.

PURL maintenance is an important difference between PURLs and several URN proposals. In some URN proposals, a URN is a permanent name for a unique resource and only that resource forever. Some URN proposals would allow the same resource to move, but would not allow a different resource to be associated with the URN. PURLs make the name permanent, but allow the associated URL to change.
Using PURLs"

WhatTheyThink.com -PANTONE Rebranding :

"PANTONE Rebranding: An Interview with Pantone?s VP of Marketing, Doris Brown
By Cary Sherburne, Senior WTT Editor

January 31, 2007 -- In our Graph Expo coverage, we mentioned that Pantone, long-known as the standard for color matching in the graphic communications industry, is taking its knowledge, expertise and creativity to the retail space in a big way. The introduction of over 70 retail paint stores nationwide and the creation of the PANTONE huey(tm), available at Apple and Circuit City, has required Pantone to undertake an entirely new marketing approach. Symbolic of this approach, led by marketing visionary Doris Brown, Pantone's Vice President of Marketing, is the company?s new web site and its new tagline, The color of ideas.
Whenever you are inspired by an image, Pantone is there to help you realize that inspiration

It is always exciting to talk to an established and respected company in our industry that is moving rapidly, and successfully into new markets. WhatTheyThink checked-in with Doris Brown to get the inside story on the changes happening at Pantone.

WTT: Doris, thanks for speaking with us today. What?s behind the new branding strategy at Pantone?

DB: The PANTONE(TM) Chip has been iconic for more than 40 years, and it resonates strongly with printing. Printers recognize the PANTONE Color Chip as a formal contract with their customers. We have reveled in the fact that the company?s brand represents such a strong recognition of color lockdown. People who don?t know anything about printing or color know about the chip. Although Pantone has expanded its abilities into other markets, including textiles, home and fashion, web design, plastics and paint, the iconic chip is still tightly linked to printing. But Pantone has expanded beyond its chip execution. When my dad was younger, he would look at an art book image of a Monet piece and that would transport him to France. Now someone opens up a computer screen and can see the world through the monitor. Pantone works with manufacturers, almost like Intel Inside, and has expanded to encompass a broader market reach. We needed to look at branding and overall execution, and get a fresher look that would speak about the company better."

--
There is much more information excellent information in this article
visit: http://members.whattheythink.com/specialreports/070131sherburne.cfm

give it a read!

Uncle Dave
www.printplanet.com

Travel:It?s all about the TIFFs:

{by Mordy Golding}

"A post on the InDesign Secrets blog and some questions I?ve recently received while on tour on the Discover Adobe Creative Suite 2 Tour made me think about posting this ? some of the content I had posted previously on the CTP-Q Print Planet forum, and there?s some other related stuff as well here. On the CTP forum, this topic came up mainly due to issues where a user noticed that after placing certain kinds of images into Illustrator (PSD files), the image ended up being chopped up into pieces, while it was not happening when placing other image files (TIFF files).

First, let?s talk about how the TIFF format might be more beneficial than using PSD or EPS when placing art from Photoshop into Illustrator.

Illustrator is quite an old application and while a lot of the internal code has been rewritten and updated over the years, a lot of the old code is still there as well. Keep in mind that Illustrator has over 5 million lines of code, so it?s impossible to rewrite the entire application at once ? but portions of the code are rewritten over time. One example is the text engine which appeared in version CS (although the rewriting of that text engine actually started 5 years prior during the development of Illustrator 9).

In early versions of Illustrator (we?re talking version 1.1 and 3.2 here), Illustrator wasn?t really built to handle large raster images (and there was little reason to imagine it should), and so when large images were placed into Illustrator, those images were chopped up into smaller pieces. Why? Because in those days, programs were bound to linear memory allocations. Remember those? If AI would request a huge block of memory when it placed an EPS file, it would be very hard to find a block at that size, and that memory wouldn?t be released and would result in a waste of memory. By chopping the image up into smaller chunks, Illustrator could request smaller memory allocations and better manage system memory and its internal memory."

Full post on http://c31b.travel-ontour.com/TravelIts-all-about-the-TIFFs/ by Mordy Golding

PrintPlanet.com | Learn - Teach - Debate : Be on the forefront of prepress, print production, post press, personalization printing, print: "'

Data Driven Publishing, VDP-PLus' is a special interest discussion forum. This SIG is available 24x7 world wide for on-line discussions concerning data driven publishing, (also known as : VDP, a catch-all term for any data-driven document production technique or methodology).

We are a venue for: Un-biased, real world opinions on VDP software tools from end-users. Another, less formal (back-channel) venue for technical support from software and hardware vendors. Commentary from printing industry pioneers, educators and non-printing companies adding VDP into their internal document workflows. Discussion where all parties want to learn, discuss and debate both the enabling technologies and the value-creating applications that are based on the technologies.

Discussions cover very broad categories:
'What VDP 'is,' 'how it works,' 'help!'' - PSP-industry dialogs.
'What VDP does' client-oriented dialogs."

http://www.printplanet.com

Free webinar Tomorrow Jan 30, 2007

"Integrated Campaign Management, Next Generation Variable Data"

It will be conducted by Barb Pellow who will share trends in VDP .
This WhatTheyThink.com webinar is FREE and should be a good use of your time!!

Two printers will be on a panel discussing their recent success with integrated VDP campaigns.
* Bob Pease, Vice President of Sales for Landmark Impressions in Boston, who has launched many successful integrated marketing campaigns
* Christopher M. Petro, President of Global Soft Digital Solutions, Inc., whose company has implemented a wide range of sophisticated and successful one-to-one communications initiatives on behalf of its customers

This one-hour event will provide graphic arts and printing executives with insight into what is coming and offer advice and guidance on how they can leverage this new convergence to grow their businesses.

The event is TOMORROW, January 30th, from 2:00 to 3:00 PM Eastern Time.

Get more info or Register Free -
http://members.whattheythink.com/home/webinarregistrationform.cfm

WhatTheyThink.com - The ABC?s of Forecasting:

"Forecasting should not become an arduous and bureaucratic process. Nor should it become politicized. The quickest way for that to happen is to tie forecast accuracy to sales compensation. Honesty must permeate a forecasting system. Tying forecasting to compensation is only asking for trouble, creating potential of ?low-ball? forecasts on the part of sales people, and intimidation on the part of managers anxious to impress higher-ups with aggressive targets and to motivate sales reps. Goal-setting is not the same as forecasting, and should be apart from it.

Of great concern at the roundtable was dealing with customer loss and replacement. Customer losses are not always related to supplier performance. A sales representative and production personnel can execute all of their tasks perfectly, yet a large client can disappear for reasons out of their control. It was clear that the owners who were sitting at the table don't lose many customers due to performance issues. Their bigger problems were customers who change communications plans, merge with another company that uses other suppliers or is outside of the geographic or market niche they sell to, or go bankrupt and close. These can result in quite substantial revenue losses. Whatever the reason, those sales still have to be replaced.

In the end, forecasting is a constant process of learning about the business as it exists at a particular point in time. The exercise uncovers many issues that would otherwise surface as crises later on. Every forecast needs a scheduled reappraisal as the year goes on. Unexpected situations, problems, and opportunities always arise. Dealing with them in a in the forecasting context is more likely to yield a sensible, thoughtful plan of attack than if they were allowed to fester into a crisis."

read full article at: http://members.whattheythink.com/drjoewebb/drjoe172.cfm

Amazon.com: Security and Usability: Designing Secure Systems That People Can Use: Books: Lorrie Faith Cranor,Simson Garfinkel: "Human factors and usability issues have traditionally played a limited role in security research and secure systems development. Security experts have largely ignored usability issues--both because they often failed to recognize the importance of human factors and because they lacked the expertise to address them.

But there is a growing recognition that today's security problems can be solved only by addressing issues of usability and human factors. Increasingly, well-publicized security breaches are attributed to human errors that might have been prevented through more usable software. Indeed, the world's future cyber-security depends upon the deployment of security technology that can be broadly used by untrained computer users.

Still, many people believe there is an inherent tradeoff between computer security and usability. It's true that a computer without passwords is usable, but not very secure. A computer that makes you authenticate every five minutes with a password and a fresh drop of blood might be very secure, but nobody would use it. Clearly, people need computers, and if they can't use one that's secure, they'll use one that isn't. Unfortunately, unsecured systems aren't usable for long, either. They get hacked, compromised, and otherwise rendered useless.

There is increasing agreement that we need to design secure systems that people can actually use, but less agreement about how to reach this goal. Security & Usability is the first book-length work describing the current state of the art in this emerging field. Edited by security experts Dr. Lorrie Faith Cranor and Dr. Simson Garfinkel, and authored by cutting-edge security and human-computer interaction (HCI) researchers world-wide, this volume is expected to become both a classic reference and an inspiration for future research.

Security & Usability groups 34 essays into six parts:

* Realigning Usability and Security---with careful attention to user-centered design principles, security and usability can be synergistic.
* Authentication Mechanisms-- techniques for identifying and authenticating computer users.
* Secure Systems--how system software can deliver or destroy a secure user experience.
* Privacy and Anonymity Systems--methods for allowing people to control the release of personal information.
* Commercializing Usability: The Vendor Perspective--specific experiences of security and software vendors (e.g., IBM, Microsoft, Lotus, Firefox, and Zone Labs) in addressing usability.
* The Classics--groundbreaking papers that sparked the field of security and usability.

This book is expected to start an avalanche of discussion, new ideas, and further advances in this important field."

Blogger's note:
... CHAPTER NINETEEN Privacy Issues and Human-Computer Interaction MARK S. ACKERMAN AND SCOTT D. MAINWARING P RIVACY CAN BE A KEY ASPECT OF THE USER ...

In The Balance Blog: The Softer Side of Digital Printing: "The Softer Side of Digital Printing

I met a small business owner last week, Alan, and we struck up a conversation about Lulu.com. His mother had written stories of her childhood earlier in her life, but was never able to get published. For her 89th birthday, Alan uploaded the book to Lulu.com and presented her with the bound book. She loved it so much she ordered 50 copies, wrote personal notes in them, and gave them to her grandchildren and close friends.

A while later Alan took his mother to the grocery store in her home town. As they were checking out, the young cashier looked at her, then her name, then she exclaimed 'You're that author!' Alan's mother had given a copy to the local library where the cashier saw it and read it.

That moment was the best day of Alan's mother's life. She could have died right there and not been happier."

Our Printer Got Hacked?!?!: "Our Printer Got Hacked?!?!
By Larry Seltzer
January 25, 2007

Opinion: Yes, hackers can enter unprotected ports and exploit buffer overflows in printers. Things never stop getting more outrageous with computer security, do they?

It's one of those 'not really a big deal yet but could blow up soon' problems: Printers, especially higher-end multifunction business printers, have become so intelligent and complicated that they have serious security risks. They are, in fact, really desktop computers, even workstations in disguise.

They run a wide range of operating systems customized and hardened to varying degrees. Linux, Windows XP Embedded, NetBSD, VxWorks, even AIX in one old IBM printer model. These operating systems may have vulnerabilities on their own, and who knows what flaws are in the applications that do the actual printing, scanning, managing the control panel, and so on."

Faced with making a decision about installing Vista or waiting?
Want to discuss Vista's impact on the Graphic Arts World and YOU with your peers.
Why not make use of The PrintPlanet.com Powertech Discussion forum! Vista is on-topic.
http://www.printplanet.com/ Membership rolls for 25 Jan 2007 show 2,000 members on the Powertech Discussion forum.
--
Join PrintPlanet.com discussion forums. Membership is free!

It is necessary to go through the sign up application procedure.
Please go to http://www.printplanet.com
Select Register
A click will take you to the application form
Fill the application out in full. Please do not skip or omit any requested information.
Submit application.
--
The form will be reviewed.
The application process is semi automated. The human person reviewing your application can not fill in missing information.
Within minutes of your becoming a member our friendly computer ListManagerSQL@printplanet.com will send you welcome with information regarding the forum.

We have a firm commitment to privacy. The user's contact information is used by us to contact parties when necessary. We do not sell, rent or lease the email addresses of our members.

Dave Mainwaring
PrintPlanet
mainwaring@rcn.com"

January 24, 2007 -- The formerly manageable world of marketing using print and mass media has exploded into countless micro communications channels. Familiar media has been augmented with the rapid run-up of Web, search, e-mail, blogs, satellite radio, chat, video on demand, interactive television, and even the small-screen iPhone. Interfacing with more media and new marketing channels means greater complexity for the graphic communications service provider.

You are also dealing with a new customer base that is focused on multi-channel communications ? the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). In today?s market, The CMO?s challenge is far greater than brand communications. Marketing groups must now fill the sales pipeline with predisposed prospects, optimize customer value, and be accountable for demand generation through market differentiation and integrated multi-channel campaign management. There is extreme pressure to deliver marketing ROI. Yesterday?s mass-media strategies need to be replaced with precision targeting strategies and comprehensive integrated marketing campaigns.

Looking Back at 2006

During 2006, there was a tremendous buzz about automated marketing campaign capabilities. New tools from Pageflex, XMPie, and MindFireInc. enable users to send the right message to the right contact at the right time and track response rates with limited manual effort.

Variable Data Alone Isn?t Enough to Meet the Needs of the CMO

In the graphics communications world, the historical perspective has been that delivering a more relevant message has significant value. Available solutions range from simple mail merge to complex transaction document solutions. In its 2005 Variable Data Design and Production Report, InfoTrends identified four options including:"
Complete story on WhatTheyThink.com : "Variable Data Isn?t Enough Anymore!

The Ugly Truth Behind PDFs and AIs, January 22nd, 2007
Written by David Blatner

Color me annoyed this morning. It?s not the weather. After all, it?s a typical beautiful day here on the outskirts of Seattle ? oppressive near-rain gray, just the way I like it. No, once again my frustration turns to InDesign. As you all know, I love InDesign, but love is like a magnet: It can repulse as quickly as it attracts. So forgive me a short IDSGOM, which may be educational to some readers.

The issue, you see, is the Adobe Illustrator format. Now, I was a Freehand man, myself. I loved Freehand dearly in the early ?90s. I even wrote a plug-in for Freehand 3.0 which (much) later evolved into an InDesign plug-in. But like many of us, I switched to Illustrator somewhere in the mid-90s. I can certainly understand why Adobe InDesign hasn?t historically opened Freehand files. But Illustrator? Illustrator is the grandpappy of Adobe?s happy family. Of course, InDesign can import Illustrator files. In fact, Adobe has spent countless marketing dollars telling the world that InDesign can open native Illustrator files.

But it?s not true.

InDesign cannot read the AI file format. It?s all been a sham. I can?t believe I fell for it, and I?m not sure if I?m more angry at Adobe for not allowing me to import AI files or at myself for having drunk the KoolAid and believed them without digging deeper.

But David, I hear you shouting, I import .AI files all the time! Yes, but InDesign isn?t reading the AI part? The only reason InDesign can import that file properly is that you have saved it with the Create PDF Compatible File checkbox turned on. InDesign is reading the PDF part, not the AI part!

Complete commentary on
InDesignSecrets » Blog
or:
http://indesignsecrets.com/the-ugly-truth-behind-pdfs-and-ais.php

Adobe Labs - Adobe Photoshop Lightroom: "Update: Photoshop Lightroom beta 4.1 released on October 19, 2006. Get it now.

Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom? engages the professional photography community in a new way, giving you the opportunity to kick the tires and shape the feature set of a new tool being created just for you.

We?re releasing a preview build now so that you have plenty of time to give us feedback on what?s working for you, and what isn?t. Whether you choose the beta for Macintosh Windows, your feedback is needed. Download now before the Photoshop Lightroom beta 4.1 build expires February 28, 2007."

Adobe Lightroom Killer Tips » Getting Your Photos Out of Lightroom (Exporting): "Ever since I started teaching people about Lightroom, there has been one question that I keep getting. It seems everyone understands how to get photos into Lightroom and there are lots of tutorials on processing and editing those photos once they?re in. However, the one thing that I keep getting questions on is how to get your photos out of Lightroom. There?s not really a ?Save? button like there is in Photoshop. Instead, there?s an export dialog. It?s here that you can save your raw photos into any of the popular image formats such as JPEG, PSD, TIFF, or even DNG. It?s actually really easy and this week?s video covers just what you need to know."

The Run Down: Creative Rights: "Creative Rights

Okay, here's the real Rundown on The Weirding:

One of the biggest things I wanted to be certain of is the protection of rights when it comes to the site. I went back and forth (and still am) as to how best to protect those rights. One idea which I have not completely given up on is printing all text in images with watermarks and copyright indicia, etc. This would make it pretty inconvenient for everyone, from me all the way down to the end-user, and I'm not sure how well it would protect anyone's material, anyway. Let's face it: if someone really wants to do something -- good, bad, or otherwise -- they'll figure out a way to do it. So I'm walking a fine line between making it harder for such people to do this, while still making the material accessible and available to viewers. Further, making the text into images completely destroys the HTML coding, which is antithetical to the form."

MiddleEastEvents.com - A complete guide to events in Dubai, Cairo, Amman, Doha, Kuwait, Manama, Muscat, Riyadh: "About MiddleEastEvents.com
MiddleEastEvents.com is a portal covering all events, exhibitions, trade shows, concerts, conferences, seminars, entertianment programmes and festivals in the following countries - Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tureky, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. It has a complete database on all event related information and an efficient search engine to find this information.

MiddleEastEvents.com helps you find, what's on today, what's happenning next week and what will go on next month!"

Women In Portland Publishing: "Welcome to the home of WiPP!
? Comments Off

**Please excuse any occasional kinks in our site. We are currently looking into funding an upgrade, and we welcome any of your comments/suggestions in the meantime: info@womeninpublishing.com.***

We are Women in Portland Publishing: editors, writers, graphic designers, marketing and publicity professionals, small publishers, and aspiring students of the trade. We are spirited, creative, multi-talented, and resourceful, using our collective skills and Web site to support each other while uniting the local publishing scene. We also strive to serve the greater Portland community, assisting those in need and coming full circle to present the endless benefits that come from working together."

Practical Advice for Mastering Digital Color: "Practical Advice for Mastering Digital Color

By Eileen Fritsch

Have you ever felt confused about how to translate color-management concepts into everyday success in your studio? If so, check out Mastering Digital Color, the new book by photographer/printmaker David Saffir.

I?ve known David for several years, and have relied on him for candid, common-sense assessments of how well new products would work for the typical photographer struggling to simultaneously keep pace with changing workflows and changing markets for photographic services."

What is Real Estate Postcards Farming? | Real Estate Marketing Tips: "What is Real Estate Postcards Farming?

Real estate postcards farming is the practice of picking and choosing among a collection of pictures and templates put together by printing and publishing companies to use in your own real estate postcards. While real estate postcards farming can be cost effective, there are several drawbacks to real estate postcards farming.

One of the best things about real estate postcards farming is that someone else has already done the hard work of design or you. Someone else has paid the photographer or the artist and has found visually appealing and interesting pictures to put on your real estate postcards and mailers. Finding artwork for these purposes can be both time consuming and expensive, so it is no wonder that many realtors want to outsource the problem to someone else.

While real estate postcards farming does have that benefit, there are also some drawbacks. For one, your real estate postcards will not be original, you, in fact, run the high risk of using the same art work and templates that your local competition is using, which confuses your audience and dilutes your message. Furthermore, the very fact that real estate postcards farming creates stock real estate postcards means that your unique business vision and voice may not get through to your intended audience. If there is nothing unique about your mailers, your potential customers may think there is nothing unique about you and no reason to hire you or recommend you to anyone else. It is important, therefore, to weight the cost and benefits of real estate postcards farming before partaking in the practice yourself."

Any way you slice it « The Book's Den: "About this Blog

Welcome to our Collective Blog, our goal is to connect with readers. We are a group of authors from various writing and social groups and now collaborate in this outreach endeavor. Find out more here. This is a bilingual blog, so if you encounter a blog entry in Spanish just scroll down a little and you'll find some in English as well.

We hope you enjoy getting to know new and established authors and participate in our blog by commenting frequently; we want to know you.
Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting Clary Lopez, Moderator"

Craig Bradney and Peter Linnell discuss the future of Free and Open Source Software for commercial printing:

Right now, I would say the biggest weakness from an FOSS point of view is there are few good high quality fonts. It is one of those areas which requires tremendous amounts of QA to make them reliable in the commercial print world. This is highlighted throughout our documentation.

(QA = Quality Assurance ;-) )

Read the interview here: http://www.kde.me.uk/index.php?page?

Posted by Femke on Wednesday, January 3rd, 2007 in: Lay-out software, Printing + Publishing."

Tyee Books Blog » Blog Archive » Brits Recycle a Canadian Idea:

"Go to Tyee Books Home Book Story Archive Tyee Books Blog Tyee Home News Views Mediacheck Entertainment Life Photo Essay Sports Comics BC Blogs Citizen Toolkit Series Teen Angst Poetry Too Many Georges Hockey Novel Election Stories Election Blog Battleground BC The Spin Hotbuttons
Search for
Tyee Books Blog
Brits Recycle a Canadian Idea

Posted by Charles Demers on January 19th, 2007

After years of monarchist Upper Canada bluebloods doing their whole derivative British thing, it?s nice to see some Brits recycling Canadian ideas ? in this case, recycling. The UK?s Independent recently ran a laudatory piece about Canada (and specifically B.C.?s Raincoast Books) setting the example for ?green publishing? ? printing books on recycled paper.
?It is the country that gave the literary world Margaret Atwood and Carol Shields. Now it is at the vanguard of green publishing.? Pretty nice. Nicer still ? if we stick to the conventional wisdom that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery ? is the news that UK writers are following suit, including big names like ?Helen Fielding, Philip Pullman and Ian Rankin? who ?have signed up? to the effort."

isen.blog: The bind in Google Unbound: "isen.blog

David S. Isenberg's musings about loci of intelligence and stupidity.
Friday, January 19, 2007

The bind in Google Unbound
Yesterday, at Cory Doctorow's rather public BoingBoing invitation, I went to Unbound, Google's look at the future of publishing. It was absolutely excellent, with Chris 'Long-Tail' Anderson, Seth 'Permission Marketing' Godin, Cory 'BoingBoing' Doctorow, Stephen 'Freakonomics' Dubner, and Tim 'O'Reilly' O'Reilly, a bunch of other good speakers (including friend David Worlock) and an audience that was 80% traditional publishing industry and 20% BoingBoing readers.

Wow, if you have never heard Seth Godin speak, do yourself a favor next time you get the chance and go. Cory's even better; somebody should follow him around doing audio-video because every Cory moment is a genuine original. These guys are the masters of our era.

The day's theme was about the Deep Structure of publishing. To wit, publishing is not about printing and selling paper with black markings on it. It is not even about authors and bookstores. The enemy isn't piracy, but obscurity. The Long Tail needs to be discoverable. The publisher of tomorrow convenes communities around people and ideas. Freedom of the press is about attention, not presses.

The audience was docile. sessions were short. There was a tension in the room because nobody wanted to offend the host, no matter that Google has announced its intent to paint the neighborhood flaming purple with lime green polka dots.

What could have been the climax of the day belonged to Tim O'Reilly, an extraordinary convener of people and ideas, who was explaining why Google Book Search was in most publishers' interests. Finally a questioner from the School of Traditional Publishing spoke up to ask Tim why Google thought it had the right to create Book Search even when the publisher of a given (copyrighted, DRMed, otherwise pwned) book objected. Hey, there's a big, gray, smelly ELEPHANT in the room.

Unfortunately for most of the audience, the microphone carrier never made it over to the questioner's chair. So most of the people didn't hear this most important question. Tim answered, the questioner followed up in an animated fashion (I didn't even get the gist, thanks to the absence of amplification), Tim got cranked up to respond . . . but the moderator cut off discussion!

Boy, howdy, did Google ever blow that one. The chance to have The Discussion On Everybody's Mind went by the boards. Readers of isen.blog know I really trust Google not to be evil. I still do, in a trust-but-verify kind of way. I also trust Google not to be closed or ignorant, and I was more than a little disappointed by what could have been a great learning experience for all at Google Unbound."

King County Journal printing final edition:

Save a link to this article and return to it at www.savethis.comSave a link to this
Story Published: Jan 19, 2007

Story Updated: Jan 19, 2007
By Keith Eldridge

BELLEVUE - A local newspaper that's been publishing for more than a hundred years is printing its final edition. The King County Journal is calling it quits. But the demise of one paper is giving rise to several community papers.

The final printing runs of the King County Journal are under way. Sunday is the final edition. It leaves a rich heritage of publishing covering 118 years.

It also leaves a rich heritage of people who are mourning the loss Friday.

'You know, there's losses on both sides of the ledger here. For the community and the people who've worked here,' said KCJ reporter Dean Radford.

The paper was recently sold and the new owners, Black Press, saw a paper with dwindling circulation and decreasing advertising dollars.

'We knew the daily was in serious trouble and we had very little hope of saving it,' said General Manager/Publisher Don Kendall. 'But we gave one last look at it to see if there was anything possible.'

In the end the decision was to close the King County Journal.

'Very, very difficult,' said KCJ sports reporter Mark Klaas. 'A lot of talented people I said goodbye to and are now suddenly looking for jobs.'

While this is the end of an era for this long-running newspaper, it is the beginning of a new era.

The printing presses will soon be pumping out new editions of community papers. Nine community papers will be taking the place of the King County Journal. That?s one for nearly every city covered by the Journal and coming out twice or once a week.

Radford will be the editor of the Renton Reporter.

'We're going to do our darndest to really give my readers in Renton a real sense of community. I mean we're going back to our roots.' Klaas stays on as the editor of the Auburn Reporter newspaper.

Still, 40 people are out of work and the paper with a rich heritage will be relegated to the dusty archives as a reminder of what once was a proud publication.

The final edition of the daily is Sunday and the first editions of the newly revamped community newspapers will come out on Wednesday.

"For More Information:"

UPNE - Mysteries of Paris: Marion Mainwaring Thu, 4 Jan 2007 16:37:38 -0500: "'[A] remarkable book . . . Mysteries of Paris is a great pleasure to read for its forensic flair, as well as for the abundant colorful detail it provides of Fullerton and his times.' ?Times Literary Supplement

The intriguing, hitherto unknown story of Edith Wharton's lover, a man of boundless charm and deceit.

It has long been known that Edith Wharton had an intense love affair around 1908. For years readers assumed that it was with Walter Berry, her friend since youth, until it was revealed that her lover was not Berry, but rather Morton Fullerton, an American living in Paris. Until now little has been known of Morton Fullerton except that he was a Harvard graduate, a Paris correspondent for the Times of London, and a friend of Henry James.

In this unusual detective story, Marion Mainwaring unfolds for her readers her pursuit of Fullerton and of the people, both high and low, who were part of his checkered life in France, America, and England. Her far-flung investigations take her to slums and chateaux, to talks with counts and viscounts, concierges, engineers, sculptors, diplomats, and, in the end, to the astonishing figure of Morton Fullerton.

Talented, intelligent, sophisticated, and ambitious, Fullerton also proved to be egotistical and unscrupulous, a cad and a con man, but his overwhelming personal charm attracted friends and lovers of both sexes. Mysteries of Paris uncovers, one by one, the details of his career as a writer and a spy, his love affairs with Wharton and other women, his close friendship with James, and his relations with Oscar Wilde, George Santayana, Paul Verlaine, Theodore Roosevelt, and many others.



MARION MAINWARING, who has lived in Paris and London for many years, has become well known as the author who completed Wharton's novel The Buccaneers (1993). A novelist in her own right, she wrote Murder in Pastiche and Murder at Midyears. She translated Youth and Age: Three Novellas by Ivan Turgenev and edited The Portrait Game, records of a parlor game played by Turgenev and his friends."