Unit Printing
Unit Printing Print Partnership Sustained Through Proactive Customer Service Excellent customer service, expert bid and pricing advice, and the latest in technology keep Louisville-based V. G. Reed i...
Unit Printing
Print Partnership Sustained Through Proactive Customer Service
Excellent customer service, expert bid and pricing advice, and the latest in technology keep Louisville-based V. G. Reed in the forefront among printers doing business with the U. S. Government Printing Office (GPO) - the federal government's centralized resource for meeting the print requirements of the work of the executive, legislative and judicial branches. According to Title 44 of the U.S. Code, all federal agencies are required to use the GPO for their print procurement and virtually all jobs must be awarded through a bid process.
Bud Reed, chief executive officer of V. G. Reed & Sons., told me that work from the GPO and other government offices keeps his presses busy when they would otherwise be idle and looking for work. While his company typically lowers its prices for jobs that are run when it has open capacity, the urgency of getting the job done on time and with the highest quality is no less important. This type work also benefits his bottom line because income at a lower rate is better than no income at all during what would otherwise be downtime. This helps V.G. Reed & Sons remain competitive and keeps prices lower across the board for all customers.
But it isn't easy winning government jobs. There are more than 10,000 printers registered to bid on work from the GPO. Of those, roughly 400 actively vie on a regular basis for the $400 million in federal government printing contracts awarded each year.
Successfully getting government work requires a partnership - one that V. G. Reed has built and nurtured with Government Print Management, a Chambersburg, Pa., based firm that has been in the government print management business since 1975 when it was known as ABC Advisors.
Today, Government Print Management is a division of e-LYNXX Corporation and a leader in print procurement management, representing more than 250 commercial print, direct mail and print marketing suppliers across the United States. Government Print Management helps them win government print jobs using its proprietary and robust national database system for researching and obtaining, through overnight courier, fax, Internet downloading, and e-mail, all available GPO solicitations that meet the client's production requirements and capabilities. These opportunities are categorized immediately; data base entered, and disseminated on a timely basis to offer Government Print Management clients maximum bidding time based on each client's capabilities and production requirements.
Bud Reed recalled the days before ABC Advisors and Government Print Management when he had to rely on a contact at the GPO to check on posted jobs and then send them to him. That was a very hit-and-miss way of doing business. What Government Print Management does today makes what was done back then seem like the Dark Ages.
Technology has made many more government print job opportunities accessible to more printers, but with opportunities come complexity. For one thing, everything is decentralized and only a company that specializes in government print management can really keep up with the jobs and then offer advice on what will be the best opportunities for maximizing a print supplier's profitability. Government Print Management also furnishes print job histories, competitor and marketplace information, projected target pricing, negotiation of specification changes, bid submission services, bid results, assistance during the production process, invoicing, 21-day collection, and full paper work handling services. Government Print Management has experienced professional print specialists who guide clients through proposal preparation, red tape cutting, GPO rules, regulations, and procedures, all the while meeting sales goals set forth by each client.
Even with its state of the art technology, what really makes the difference for V. G. Reed is working with a Government Print Management representative who knows his business, knows how the GPO operates and knows how to put the two together so V. G. Reed is making money on government work. Bud Reed cited, as an example, the level of service day in and day out that V.G. Reed gets from Beth Miller, our account manager at Government Print Management. She proactively notifies V.G. Reed about the right type jobs that fit its equipment. She is as concerned about his profitability, as she is about ours.
An excellent case in point is a job that came into Government Print Management from the GPO for an agency customer, the U.S. Department of Labor. It was for printing books - on average 40,000 per year - for a value of several hundred thousand dollars over a five year period. It was an impressive order. Once received Miller passed it along to Government Print Management pricing experts who prepared a spread sheet that showed how V. G. Reed had priced similar jobs in the past. The spread sheet also included a recommended targeted price for the job based on Government Print Management's database of historical information on GPO jobs. This is the largest data base of its kind in the United States containing GPO job specifications and pricing dating back to 1991. V. G. Reed reviewed the pricing and made some adjustments before sending it back to Government Print Management for submission to the GPO. Because the timing on the bidding was tight, Miller kept everyone involved on track so that the bid could be successfully submitted. Had she not done that, V. G. Reed may not have made the deadline and would have been disqualified from consideration. As it turned out, V. G. Reed was the low responsive and responsible bidder and got the job.
As a senior account manager, Beth, along with others on the print specialist team, monitors close to a hundred jobs a day. The Government Print Management Production Team matches open jobs with the print supplier that is best capable of running each job. It is a sophisticated process - one that requires Government Print Management to have mastered the host of GPO requirements and procedures as well as to know the production capabilities, seasonality and pricing habits of the many print suppliers that actively bid on GPO work.
With Government Print Management as a partner, print suppliers stand a much better chance of winning government work than if they try to go it alone. Our strengths complement those of print suppliers, and we are very pleased to work with print suppliers that are the most frequent winners of GPO work.
Deborah Snider, senior vice president of Government Print Management, says it is through the strengths and performance record of V. G. Reed that Government Print Management can recommend V.G. Reed & Sons with confidence to the U. S. Government Printing Office.
About V. G. Reed & Sons
V.G. Reed & Sons is a print company that has added in-house mailing and fulfillment to its extensive list of client services. Fortune 100 financial, insurance, manufacturing, healthcare and other companies are among its clients. V.G. Reed & Sons printing has been family owned and operated for more than 65 years. It began when V. Glenn Reed, Sr. started producing mayonnaise labels in the basement of his Louisville, Ky., home in 1938. Since then it has grown into a 144,000-square-foot facility that operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The company specializes in financial and commercial offset and digital printing, and fulfillment/mailing services. For additional information, visit www.vgreed.com or call 800-635-9788. V. G. Reed is based in Louisville.
About e-LYNXX Corporation
e-LYNXX Corporation (www.e-LYNXX.com) (888-876-5432) licenses its U.S. Business Method Patent No. 7,451,106 - The Gindlesperger Method - to buyers and third party procurement and system providers through its Patented Procurement Method division. e-LYNXX also works with print buyers to reduce their procured print costs through its American Print Management division and with print suppliers seeking to improve their revenues by winning government work through its Government Print Management division. Founded in 1975 as ABC Advisors, e-LYNXX Corporation is based in Chambersburg, PA 17201.
About the Author
William Gindlesperger, founder, chairman and chief executive officer of e-LYNXX Corporation (www.e-LYNXX.com) (888-876-5432), is a nationally recognized entrepreneur, inventor, author and consultant in print and procurement. He founded ABC Advisors and its successor, e-LYNXX Corporation, in 1975. Under Mr. Gindlesperger’s leadership the firm has grown into the recognized profit enhancement leader. Print buyers and suppliers alike have benefited from his insight and innovation.
Mr. Gindlesperger has directed major in-plant studies in both the private and public sectors and he is highly regarded for his knowledge, advice and work on behalf of firms in matters pertaining to the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO). He has testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration regarding government print and procurement policy. He also has worked directly with numerous Congressional and Senatorial members and staff and has advised Congress on the development, operations and future of GPO print procurement and the federal print program in general.
Mr. Gindlesperger invented the methodology that optimizes cost reduction in the procurement of specification-defined goods and services. He has been granted two separate business method patents by the U.S. Patent Office, first for the competitive procurement of print and then for the competitive procurement of all specification-defined goods and services.
A native of Chambersburg, Pa., Mr. Gindlesperger is a graduate of Dickinson College.
Print-on-demand: Publishing Revolution or Hype-filled Exploitation?
The Down-and-Dirty on Publishing’s Over-Promoted Technology
(Adapted from The Well-Fed Self-Publisher: How to Turn One Book into a Full-Time Living, by Peter Bowerman. Fanove, 2007. www.wellfedsp.com).
In a recent year, Xlibris, one of the big names in POD (Print-on-Demand), celebrated paying out their one-millionth dollar in royalties. The prior year, they helped authors publish more than 7,000 titles and sell over 300,000 books. Impressive, huh? Well, let’s do the math. $1 million for 7000 titles comes out to an average royalty of $149 each. Not exactly worth bragging about…
How POD Works
In the past few years, POD has generated a huge buzz in the industry, promising to “provide the keys to the serious publishing kingdom for all those authors heretofore locked out of the game” and other lofty claims. Not really. Remember, POD isn’t some “miracle” or a “publishing revolution”; it’s just a printing technology, nothing more. Let’s try to separate the reality from the hype...
With POD, you submit your book to a POD publisher (AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Trafford, Xlibris and PublishAmerica are big players) in an electronic format, pay a fee (typically $400-1500 depending on the company and the marketing options selected; see below), they’ll “produce” your book and load it onto their system. No physical books are printed until someone orders one (i.e., through a bookstore).
POD – THE UPSIDES
POD makes sense for three particular scenarios:
1) Authors whose goals are to get in print, say “I’m an author” and have the book available for friends and family, but without the funds to finance an offset print run.
2) Authors taking the long view. Meaning, they indeed want to be a successful writer, know full well the limitations of the POD model, but know how hard it is to attract a publisher, and want to start building a platform for themselves. In those cases, they use POD to create the best (aesthetically speaking) possible book they can, knowing that it might take 2, 3 or 4 books to finally build up a name (and perhaps attract a publisher). And POD can help them cut to the chase.
3) Larger publishers with out-of-print titles which now, thanks to POD, can be reactivated and start earning new income streams.
POD – THE DOWNSIDES
The POD Business Model
By definition, conventional publishers have to be selective about the books they take on because their payoff doesn’t come until they sell a bunch. By contrast, because POD publishers make the lion’s share of their income on upfront fees – and because web space isn’t exactly in short supply – they have every incentive to sign up as many authors as possible, regardless of manuscript quality, and once signed up, virtually no incentive to promote them. Heck, they’ve made their money! They know most of the books won’t be successful, so why expend much more effort when the returns will likely be minimal?
The Marketing Hype
POD publishers will undoubtedly pitch you on their aggressive plan to market your title – at an extra cost, of course. Don’t get your hopes up. It’ll be an impressive sounding menu of window-dressing. They’ll promise to send a press release to thousands of potentially interested parties – a standard cookie-cutter piece, mass-mailed to people who get far too many anyway. Even if they do read it, once they figure out it’s a POD book, unfortunately, that’ll work against you. And here’s why…
No Respect
Why are most POD books not taken seriously by bookstores, media and reviewers? For starters, with typically higher printing costs, lower print quality and usually a “no-return” policy, (i.e., less profits and more hassles), the big bookstore chains aren’t exactly falling all over themselves to carry POD books. More importantly, POD is viewed as relatively “barrier-free” publishing.
Let’s examine the hierarchy. At the top is a conventionally published book. A book with a reputable publishing house’s imprimatur has jumped through many hoops before finally making the grade. The “book-sales-before-profits” equation ensures only the best survive.
One step down is a book like mine – “conventionally” self-published (i.e., I’ve paid for design, typesetting, offset printing, etc.) Yes, as the author, there’s no screening process other than my decision to publish, but, on the plus side is this: a self-publishing author has to totally finance the venture – typically, $8-12K to bring a 2500-5000-unit printing to market. Presumably, that implies an at least marginal grip on reality. Few people will drop that kind of dough on a lark unless they know they’ve got a good product.
Then, there’s POD publishing: a publishing decision left completely to the author and one with a minimal financial investment. So, quite legitimately, the key reviewers and bookstore chains ask, “What’s stopping any Tom, Dick or Harriet from getting published?” Not much anymore. Hence, low barrier = low respect.
Self-published books – even done the high-end way – already fight an uphill battle for respect and credibility. Why? Because, in truth, most are inferior in content and production quality. With POD, it’s a double-whammy.
Royalties, Not Profits
In self-publishing as I do it, after expenses, all profits are mine. By contrast, most POD publishers will have you sign a contract that pays you royalties and in many cases, has you turn over the rights to your creation – at least for a certain period of time. And those royalties are often based on net proceeds (after discounts to wholesalers, etc.), not retail price, reducing them even further.
Not YOUR ISBN
When you self-publish a book, you want to be the “publisher-of-record.” If you’re not, then that book wouldn’t technically be self-published, would it? You’re the “publisher-of-record” only if you own your ISBN number. Most POD publishers own the ISBN numbers for their authors’ books, so they’re the “publisher-of-record.” Which, incidentally, is the only reason they can get away with calling themselves “publishers,” and in the process, confuse unsuspecting authors into thinking they’re “publishers” on the par with a real one.
You NEED Cheap Books
Commercial success with your book demands a LOT of book marketing and promotion and that means sending out LOTS of review copies. With POD, buying your own copies of, say, a $20 retail book, will cost you roughly $8-10 each (similar, incidentally, to conventional publishing, where authors typically buy their own books for 50% off retail). Add about $3 more for press kit, mailer and postage and you could go broke in a hurry. My books? About $1.50 each, making a full review package less than $5 each.
Not to mention you’ll miss out on all those juicy personal book sales at events, seminars and out of the trunk of your car. With book costs around $2 each, you can afford to discount books 25-50% and still make a nice profit. With POD, no can do.
Depending on your goals, POD might be just the ticket or it could be a dead-end. Do your homework. Understand its limitations and be realistic about its potential. Read contracts carefully and ask questions about royalties, rights, minimum book purchases and artistic control. You could save yourself a truckload of disappointment. And keep in mind: if you just want the POD technology, minus the hype, you’re better off with a digital printer like Fidlar Doubleday (fidlardoubleday.com).
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Got a book in you? Can’t land a publisher? Why not do it yourself, and make a living from it? Sound good? Then, check out the free report on self-publishing at www.wellfedsp.com, the home of the 2006 release The Well-Fed Self-Publisher: How to Turn One Book into a Full-Time Living. Author
About the Author
Author Peter Bowerman is known for the award-winning (and self-published) Well-Fed Writer titles (on the lucrative field of commercial freelancing), which have provided him with a full-time living for over five years. (www.wellfedwriter.com).