Truepress cleans up after Dirty Politics reprints

The publication of the book Dirty Politics, currently the nation’s number one best seller, has proved the capabilities of Printing.com’s Screen Truepress 520, a 520mm wide web digital inkjet colour press.

Robbie Burton, co-owner of Craig Potton Publishing, says the company made the decision to go with a digital print run because of the nature of the book. He says, “No one knew how many copies we would need. I spoke with Symon Yendoll at Printing.com in Wellington and we decided on an initial run of 4000.”

However, neither the publisher nor the printer could have predicted what happened next. At the book launch, author Nicky Hager explained how the book’s contents detailed certain government ministers’ relationships with political bloggers and made allegations of impropriety. Burton could tell from the book launch buzz that they might have a big seller on their hands. Yendoll says, “Robbie phoned me during the launch and ordered another 2000 books.”

The initial print run of 4,000 copies of Dirty Politics sold out within hours after its release to the general public. Since then, Printing.com has received ongoing orders for the book; the total currently stands at 14,000. Last week, demand for the book increased on a daily basis as Hager’s source of information, calling itself Whaledump, released further details. The government’s inability to put the issues to bed fuelled further interest in the book and it received widespread media coverage. The allegations have already led to calls for the resignation of Justice Minister Judith Collins and the launch of an inquiry. Meanwhile, the Truepress has kept up with demand.

Fujifilm supplied the country’s first Screen Truepess 520 to Printing.com (then Astra Print) in 2010. It gives the company a significant point of differentiation. Yendoll says, “With any other technology, they would have started with a print run of 6000 and then, they would have had to wait weeks to produce another run. It’s refreshing to know you can have a runaway best seller in New Zealand and we are still going strong with it.”

Printing.com provides an online web portal for retail and offers its services to other print companies. Yendoll says, “This technology enables us to offer short, cost-effective print runs to book, newspaper and magazine publishers, in full colour or mono. It’s powerful because we can offer it to the entire print community. Part of our business is trade printing. We do wholesale rates for other printers. This device fits a niche in the market. It is absolutely unrivalled.”

Burton adds, “It illustrates how you can make the best use of a digital printing press. We had no idea of the demand for the book and it has gone way bigger than we could have imagined. Printing.com has been fantastic. It’s a tribute to their ability with the technology that they can turn it around like this. While we still produce a power of print on offset presses, the digital technology has proved its value and it complements the other technology we use.”

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