value you’ll offer. The cost is a function of supply and demand, but when print moves into a high-value collectible type category, that’s the kind of market you want to be in.” He also suggested the full promise of this market may not be fully realized for years. That’s because the younger cohort that represents the largest users of digital photography, and is the most likely to snap images, hasn’t yet reached the age where emotional value starts to be attached to images. “What I tell people is don’t get too caught up with how young people handle photos today. They hold little value for them, and store them on a disc or the cloud,” Corwin said, adding that will likely change as they mature. Find this article at PrintingNews.com/12101264 of their business from existing customers. Their best opportunities are in reaching out to organizational clients rather than the end user or consumer, he believed. “It could be a school that sells books to their alumni base,” he reported. “There are lots of avenues that keep the printer from being the lead marketer to the end user. The most profitable is school yearbooks. It’s a huge market. Previously, printers shied away from that market because they had to put out the graphics. That wasn’t part of their core business.” But with the advent of specific software geared to yearbook design, the school handles the graphic work and simply hands the printer a high-res PDF. The customized yearbook is another promising area for printers of photo books because it provides extra value, Corwin said. Much of the yearbook is comprised of standard content every recipient receives. But portions of each yearbook can be enlarged and customized to focus on areas in which students participated, whether sports, theater, or other extracurricular activities. Corwin takes a cautious approach to the issue of entering the photo book market as a novice. He noted there are many hundreds of players already in that market worldwide. That means newcomers must offer something different. “As a commercial printer, I’d have to be very well convinced that I could come in as a late entry and have something different about my book,” he said. Some of the photo books newbies must compete against are beautiful, hard-case, hardbound books costing $30 to $40, according to Corwin. “Some would argue that presents the opportunity to make a perfect bound or stitched book that could be offered more affordably,” he said. “If I were entering this market, I would probably try to think in terms of a little bit of a twist. It‘s a very competitive space, and price matters.” He pointed to the founders of Groovebook, who developed a way to ship photo books without boxes. “You take the savings in shipping, which you have with Groovebook, or you avoid the need for a 75-cent box, and you have a massive advantage,” Corwin said. HP’s Basu is of a similar philosophy, arguing it is too late in the product cycle to come in as a “me-too” participant. “You must find a way to differentiate,” he said. “There are two ways to do that. Number one, use specialty inks that enable you to differentiate. Number two, enter one of the relatively untapped markets, the high-end market, such as wedding photography. These books can go from $500 to $3,000 because the photos have great emotional attachment and because each book is unique, having been hand-bound and hand stitched. In every which way it’s a keepsake. Understand the cost-versus-value equation.” In conclusion, Corwin returned to his premise about the added value of photos. “I would recommend people look at the photo market. The more printed products to which you can attach photos, the more 16 Printing News | October 2015 PrintingNews.com
Printing News October 2015
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