Imprint Digital is celebrating the success of The Mermaid of Black Conch, the novel which has won this year’s Costa Book of the Year Prize.
It is written by Monique Coffey and published by Peepal Tree Press, a small Leeds publisher that specialises in titles by Caribbean and Black British authors. Almost all are fiction and poetry titles with initial print runs of 100-200 copies followed by reprints as needed. And in ten years it has struck a firm partnership with the digital print business near Exeter.
When the publisher started up it tried to print its own books, using the equipment to also produce commercial work. But in 2010 it switched off its presses and began working with Imprint Digital. On the Peepal Tree website, founder and managing director Jeremy Poynting, explains: “I hated printing, folding and binding with a passion.
“After much careful study of spreadsheet calculations we took the decision around 2010 to cease running a print shop and send out all our books to be made at the excellent Imprint Digital based in Exeter. It means that we print for anticipated demand and preorders and then keep reordering print runs when they are needed.”
With the Monique Coffey title, 24,000 copies have been printed to date thanks to appearing on numerous award short lists culminating in winning the 2020 Costa Book of the Year, since publication in April last year. Imprint Digital is responsible for 10,000 of these, with a 5,000 first run. The success that the book has enjoyed has meant that it had to switch to litho printing to keep unit price low. Before then Imprint had kept up with demand. “One week we reprinted it three times I believe,” says managing director Keith Sutherland.
The book featured on BBC Radio 4’s You and Yours on Friday where presenter interviewed operations manager and designer Hannah Bannister. When asked how the publisher could keep up with the surge in demand, she replied: “We always print in the UK so we didn’t have any supply chain issues related to Brexit or Covid. We have a fantastic printer Imprint Digital, who print on a little farm down in the south west.”
“When it not only won the novel of the year but the Book of the Year we went to a bigger printer.”
Imprint Digital, like Peepal, began as a printer attached to a publisher. It has managed the balance however, with investment in Canon mono presses, a Ricoh 9200 for colour and a Horizon BQ470 for binding. This is the only one in the UK able to cope with French flaps on the perfect binder. It also has single-clamp BQ270 and HT30 trimmer for proof runs. Hard cover binding is processes through Zechini. Samed, Prontotec and Opus with the first Rokin spine cutter in Europe.
