HP Reads the Room: The Future of Book Manufacturing
Change has become a constant in book manufacturing. Rather than one defining shift, the industry is navigating multiple changes at once, each reshaping how books are produced and delivered.
Barbara McManus, Vice President and General Manager of HP PageWide Industrial, has a phrase for it: permanent uncertainty. ‘We have these once-in-a-lifetime events, but they just keep happening,’ she says. ‘COVID, the post-COVID demand surge, the over-placement of stock that followed. Now it’s tariff pressures in the US, logistics disruption, geopolitical instability. Publishers need to build resilience. They need to find ways to keep working through all of it.’
This is why HP’s conversations with book manufacturers are changing, and why the technology they’re investing in needs to change with them. For a long time, the normal approach to book printing was this: print more than you need, stack the excess in a warehouse, and repulp what doesn’t sell. Sounds wasteful, but it seemed predictable.
‘When I started in this industry about 20 years ago, roughly 40% of books that were printed ended up being repulped,’ McManus says. ‘That number is now less than half of what it was. Partly through better planning, but also because digital print now exists.’
Book manufacturing is transforming
Consumer behaviour has also changed. Readers are discovering out-of-print titles through social media and they want them immediately. Back catalogues are being reopened. The market is diversifying, with more titles in smaller quantities rather than fewer titles in large volumes.
Consumer behaviour has also changed. Readers are discovering out-of-print titles through social media and they want them immediately. Back catalogues are being reopened. The market is diversifying, with more titles in smaller quantities rather than fewer titles in large volumes. High running titles still exist, but this is no longer the template on which everything is built. Paper supply hasn’t helped either. Consolidation within the paper industry has tightened supply chains and pushed up costs. Broader volatility in pulp prices and energy also needs to be taken into account.
When asking people in the industry what digital print for books actually means, many will still say short runs and print-on-demand. While print-on-demand remains a strength of digital printing, McManus invites print manufacturers to come look at the latest solutions. ‘The conversation has moved well past print-on-demand,’ she says.
HP PageWide has approached the books market from both ends. At one end, HP’s 20-inch platforms support short-run and print-on-demand production. At the other end the 42-inch T490M HD and the newly launched 55-inch T500M HD are built for high-volume mono trade book production, running at up to 1,000 feet per minute.
Mono trade books are the category most people would simply call paperbacks, black-and-white text on uncoated paper, the kind stacked at airport bookshops or found on library shelves. They have long been printed on large offset presses, but skilled operators who run those presses are retiring.
‘The T500M HD didn’t come from inside HP,’ McManus says. ‘Our customers came to us to develop a digital solution that uses the same paper rolls as offset with all the benefits of digital. The press completely eliminates plate-making. For example, when looking at a 400-page book, the number of plates involved is significant, and once you start factoring in multiple languages and localised editions for markets like Europe, the scale of what you’re removing becomes very apparent.’
What HP is now seeing from its customer base is a convergence: high-volume printers whose publishers are asking for on-demand capabilities, and on-demand specialists starting to look at higher-volume work. The portfolio can support both and increasingly, the same customer needs both.
Alongside the hardware, as many manufacturers face an ageing workforce and ongoing skills shortages, digital printing can make it easier to train new operators and bring them up to speed. Traditional offset presses require years of specialist experience, while digital presses have a gentler learning curve. ‘If you know how to use a smartphone and have some basic mechanical knowledge, you can learn to run one of our digital presses,’ McManus says.
Most HP PageWide publishing installations now run inline, roll-to-finishing production. At Hunkeler Innovation days in Switzerland last year, HP showed us what that can look like at its best: a complete book line on the PageWide Advantage 2200, running in conjunction with Hunkeler and Müller Martini finishing and binding equipment, with paper rolls going in and finished bound books coming out the other side, without any manual intervention. The whole line was managed by HP SiteFlow in coordination with Müller Martini Connex, which handled job and factory management across the production pipeline. On the press, the Smart Work Cell Controller works as a rules-based engine to prioritise jobs, balance paper types, and keep throughput moving.
‘If you’ve been in a book print shop, you know how complex it gets, book blocks at different stages of production all over the floor, covers on a different journey, everything needing to arrive at the right place at the right time,’ McManus says.
‘Right now, that’s often held together by very smart people and very good spreadsheets. AI and workflow automation will make it progressively easier. The productivity gains and the cost benefits will naturally follow.’
To round things off, HP PageWide Web Press T4250 HDR extends the digital portfolio into full-colour commercial book production, children’s titles, illustrated educational books, and reference works, running on coated stocks. Together, the range now covers the full span of book manufacturing, from a single copy to high-volume colour runs.
For years, digital print’s sustainability advantage over offset has been argued on principle. HP has now put independent data behind it. A third-party lifecycle assessment compared high-volume HP PageWide presses, specifically the T490M HD and T500M HD, against conventional offset for mono trade book production.
What came out of this was a much lower carbon footprint for digital. The main reason for this is the elimination of aluminium printing plates, which is not only a material waste but a significant environmental cost. And let’s not forget the water usage, which is another factor in offset’s favour that disappears with digital. ‘Publishers are being pushed by the market and increasingly by regulation to demonstrate their environmental credentials,’ McManus says. ‘Consumers want their paper books, compared to electronic reading devices. The lifecycle assessment lets us show, with independent data, that digital printing is a positive part of that story.’
The regulatory pull is particularly pronounced in Europe, but McManus is keen to point out that the market is pulling just as hard. Publishers are not waiting to be forced into action, their readers are already creating that demand. When we look at a customer example, Lakeside Book Company springs to mind. They are the largest book manufacturer in the United States and have been working with HP since around 2010. They started on HP’s 30-inch platforms and have now grown to run multiple 42-inch wide presses across facilities in the US and Canada. Earlier this year, Lakeside installed the new T500M HD at its Virginia site, marking one of HP’s first placements of the press in North America. The T500M HD was developed with Lakeside’s input. This is the kind of direct customer collaboration that McManus says defines how HP approaches its publishing business.
‘Our best new customers are our current customers,’ she says. ‘We have direct access to a finite number of people and we meet with them regularly. We understand what they need in terms of hardware, finishing, supplies and workflow. For a relationship like the one we have with Lakeside, that closeness is critical to our success. I hope HP is equally critical to theirs.’ Lakeside continues to operate a hybrid of digital and offset production. This is a common theme across the industry, and one HP’s portfolio is built to sit alongside rather than force customers to make a choice.
HP also runs ConTEXT, a cross-industry event that brings book manufacturers, publishers, associations, and services partners into the same room to discuss where things are heading. This year it was held in London alongside the London Book Fair, as a large number of the global publishing industry was already in the same city. The idea behind ConTEXT is to discuss industry trends and enable discussions beyond HP’s own activities. ‘It doesn’t have to be HP at the table,’ McManus says. ‘Two of our customers finding common ground, or a manufacturer and a publisher working through a shared problem are just as valuable. We feel that part of our role is to create the right conditions for these conversations to take place.’
What happens next? Well, the future in a way is already here. At Hunkeler Innovationdays, HP showed a fully automated book line in action, proving the infrastructure for nonstop digital printing already exists. The next phase is about giving production teams better tools to reduce manual administration. AI can help streamline planning tasks that are often managed through spreadsheets, giving production teams better visibility and more time to focus on higher-value decision making.
Barbara McManus
‘The expectation of getting the book you want, when you want it, is only going to grow stronger,’ McManus says. ‘That’s how everything works now. The manufacturers that can deliver either a cost-efficient run of thousands or a single copy overnight are the ones most likely to win the work. HP’s role is to be the best partner we can be: delivering the right solutions for cost, quality, and time to market.’
Barbara McManus is Vice President and General Manager of HP PageWide Industrial, based in Corvallis, Oregon.