Catford Print Centre to move into short run hard back books

Print Solutions

Confident that its new growth area will be in short run, hard back books, Catford Print Centre has installed a package of Fastbind equipment from Ashgate Automation. This, includes an Elite XT perfect binder, a Casematic H46Pro casemaker and a Booxter Duo powerful electronic staple binder for hard and soft back covers from A6 up to SRA3.

The company has seen a number of changes since it was set up in 1985, initially as an offset litho printer and then, from the late 90s, as a digital printer. Today it has two Konica colour presses and an Oce VarioPrint 6250 Ultra black and white press.

‘We have moved away from low margin leaflet printing to higher quality printing. One of our most successful growth areas is in short run paperback books where we have built up quite a reputation. We enjoy repeat business, not only from self publishers but also from small publishing houses who, not so long ago, would have found it prohibitively expensive to order a few dozen books and then come back for, up to a few hundred more,’ said Russ Jones, proprietor. ‘We pride ourselves that the quality of our books match any produced by the big publishing houses. One of our self-published books won an award after which sales took off and it was taken over by a bigger publisher.’

‘It is important in any business not to stand still, which is why we are expanding into short run hard-back books. It is an area which should give us the opportunity to provide quality products at a good margin. We have already had enquiries from existing customers which, until now, we have not been able to fulfil. It’s the next stage for self-publishers to see what they have created finished as a hard back book with a dust cover,’ Russ explained.

Russell had seen the development of Fastbind’s range of casemaking and binding equipment over the last few years, visiting Ashgate’s stand at several exhibitions. ‘I liked what I saw. It offers the complete range of equipment to meet our requirements for short run, high quality books at an affordable price.’

‘We have only just had the equipment installed and our first training day so it is very early days. We propose to specialise in standard A4 and A5 books, which we will also be marketing on our web site. Looking to the future, we specified the large format Casematic casemaker so that we can make high quality A3 landscape books. It is a market which is hardly there at the moment but there is a lot of scope for bespoke books in wedding venues, for dress designers – in fact, any company that wants to display its high quality wares in an innovative way,’ Russ concluded.