IM Printing Ltd

When we say academic book printing, actually we might mean professional book printing. In book printing sectors classification, we usually make them interchangeable. These books normally have an applied focus to aid practitioners directly in their work, for example schoolteachers, health care workers, engineers, architects, managers, and those working in law and finance. STM, reference and information books usually fall into the professional book publishing area. Some academic titles may be designed for vocational or continuing professional development courses and be adopted. Their pricing level varies widely, depending on the target audience’s ability to pay and whether they are purchased by the individual or the employer.

The changes happen to academic book printing sector business model. The publisher’s traditional role of quality assurance and accuracy in the supply of information is supplemented by the direct provision of services and tools to end-users. A key added value is to provide users with access tools to the content they need quickly, and in a form they want, at the point they need it in their workflows, be they researchers or lawyers in their offices or at home, or medical practitioners on the move. A good example is the delivery of information to doctors on Personal Digital Assistant (PDA).

Not even the largest publisher could claim to be equally strong in all disciplines or even those in science alone. Publishers concentrate on particular subjects, and vary in the emphasis given to different categories of book. The books for professional or practitioner use which have a wider market beyond teaching institutions tend to be those in the applied sciences for researchers or practitioners in industry and government agencies; and those serving professional sectors. Such high-priced titles are bought by the wealthy. Special sales channels include booksellers or training companies serving corporations, agencies and individuals; dedicated business, computer and medical book distributors or book clubs reaching end-users directly; conference and exhibition organizers; and companies which take bulk orders of titles as promotional items.

The legal and financial publishers, especially, traditionally used loose-leaf publishing for some of their reference titles. The purchaser, having bought the initial volume, received updated pages. Such publishers, as well as those producing books for business, sell a high proportion of their materials by mail order to end-users, not via booksellers. Sometimes, reference products are written in-house. Publishers have imported their businesses to digital information services, either alongside printed products or in lieu of print. Their products may be available on disk or online, and are usually licensed directly to libraries and businesses on subscription or by site licenses governing usage on intranets. Key abilities of such publishers are to identify information needs and the way that information is used in the workplace, and to translate that knowledge into the creation of products, tools and services using the appropriate media and technologies.