I received a letter recently from one of our authors concerned with the cost of our books. This is an issue that we have wrestled with as a company since our inception. Both Jennifer and I understand the challenges inherent in hand-selling a book that’s priced higher than other books on the shelf. As authors, we have experienced the same resistance and reluctance from bookstore owners.
The question of cost is always uppermost in my mind when evaluating methods, vendors and materials for book printing. Since arriving on the Olympic Peninsula in 1997, Jennifer and I have been keenly aware of the impact our business has on the environment. Color book printing has always been the most difficult aspect of our business to balance in terms of cost versus environmental impact.
Look at any book on the shelves in a bookstore and you will notice that they were printed in China. Most book publishers print their books in China, whether they are color books or not. Printing in China is much cheaper than printing in the United States and the quality is just as good, if not better. So why doesn’t OHP print their books in China?
Our decision not to print in China comes from one of the core values of our company. Our commitment to the environment is a fundamental aspect of our business. I wanted to share with you the reasons why we have decided not to print in China and have compiled some information to help you understand this decision.
China’s Contribution to Global Warming and Air Pollution in the Western United States
Several years ago, The New York Times ran a series of articles about China’s booming economy and the resulting environmental impact. The Chinese government’s desire to lift its citizens out of poverty and make their country an economic force to be reckoned with has, unfortunately, resulted in environmental catastrophe. According to this article, “Environmental degradation is now so severe, with such stark domestic and international repercussions, that pollution poses not only a major long-term burden on the Chinese public but also an acute political challenge to the ruling Communist Party. … Pollution has made cancer China’s leading cause of death, the Ministry of Health says. Ambient air pollution alone is blamed for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. Nearly 500 million people lack access to safe drinking water. … Chinese cities often seem wrapped in a toxic gray shroud. Only 1 percent of the country’s 560 million city dwellers breathe air considered safe by the European Union.” This article, published in 2008, shed light on the growing problem of pollution in China.
According to Dan Jaffe, a professor of Environmental Science at the University of Washington, who has studied global pollution for more than 20 years, China’s “emissions will likely increase 50-200% by 2020. But the good news is that China could keep the growth in emissions to modest levels or even see slight decreases for some pollutants, if advanced control technologies are employed. If this is not done, these large emission increases will be a major assault on the global environment.” To date, China has not been willing to commit to cutting their emissions, and according to a reporter present at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, China sabotaged the negotiations.
All attempts to rein in China’s massive dependence of fossil fuels and the resulting pollution put into the air—which consists mainly of ozone, particulate matter, mercury, sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide—have been unsuccessful. Some of you may remember the controversy over the air quality that plagued the 2008 Olympics, held in Bejing. This has a lot to do with the fact that the Chinese government is less concerned with the environmental well-being of the planet and the health of their people than it is with economic growth
Professor Jaffe first detected transport of pollutants from Asia to the United States in 1997. These pollutants affect the entire west coast of America from Alaska to California. “The Asian industrial contribution [of mercury] is approximately 10-30% of the total deposition across the US, with the highest contributions in Alaska and the western U.S.”
The New York Times states, “China’s problem has become the world’s problem. Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides spewed by China’s coal-fired power plants fall as acid rain on Seoul, South Korea, and Tokyo. Much of the particulate pollution over Los Angeles originates in China, according to the Journal of Geophysical Research.”
To Jennifer and myself, the fact that the Chinese government is willing to let its citizens live and work under these conditions, to knowingly continue to expand industry at the expense its people and the citizens of other countries and to essentially turn a blind eye to the fact that their country is actively and without regard contributing nearly half of the toxins that enhance global warming is unconscionable.
Given all this, printing in China is simply not an option. The higher cost of a book does not outweigh the environmental destruction that is being allowed to occur. As Americans, I think we often look for the easy fix—just find a cheaper printer. It’s not that simple. Nor is it the responsible thing to do.
China’s Printing Processes
While US ink and paper manufacturers take great pride in their recycled papers and soy-based inks, the same does not hold true for the inks, solvents and paper used by China’s printers. HP, the company from which we purchase our cartridges, uses soy-based toner and each cartridge comes with a label for the empty cartridge return. We recycle all of our cartridges for all four of our in-house printers. Additionally, the paper we use is purchased from companies that are environmentally friendly and offer recycled papers as a matter of course. Most US-based paper companies actively participate in tree replanting, and the local PNW paper companies are particularly pro-active about promoting and participating in replanting and recycling efforts.
There are no restrictions on the inks, solvents or paper used in China. The inks used for color printing, in particular, are highly toxic and recycled paper is simply not an option. The methodology used to print books is illegal in the US. This is part of the reason that books printed in the US are more expensive—US printers have to adhere to environmental regulations which are non-existent in China.
Quantity Versus Cost
OHP, as an independent press, prints books in short runs. This is an industry term for books printed in quantities between 100 and 500 copies at a time. Printing 500 copies of a single book at one time is carries an enormous cost. On three different occasions, we printed books (2 series and 1 single title) in quantities ranging from 2,000 to 10,000, which cost us between $8,000.00 and $40,000.00 for the printing alone.
We made this choice to ensure that the choices we were making were the most beneficial to both the authors and artists as well as to the company. On these three occasions, we were trying to find a way to work with Ingram Distributor’s corporate model. They require shipments of between 500 and 1,000 copies of a title all at one time. The books are then shipped to bookstores and are available for 24-hour order fulfillment turnaround. For 30 days.
One might argue that without a substantial marketing campaign to ensure public awareness this experiment would be pointless. One of the books had a $100,000.00 marketing campaign. The books still came back 30 days later and sales from that period did not even begin to approximate the money put into the production of this single title.
Books which do not sell within the 30 day period are then returned to the publisher, at our expense. The books are then reordered. Sometimes they are reordered in the same quantity and I didn’t even have to unpack them. All I had to do was pay for shipping them to Ingram a second time. The books are made available for 30 days. And then returned again, at the publisher’s expense. This continues until Ingram no longer feels there are enough ongoing orders for the title and then titles are shifted to Ingram’s version of the backlist.
Even working within this model and providing 24-hour turnaround time on our end for orders, there is a 2-week lag time between when the books are reshipped and when the book is listed once again as “available” to their vendors. This has nothing to do with us. Ingram won’t keep any of our titles in their warehouse, so the title is unavailable during it’s time in transit from Washington to Tennessee and then the time the Ingram warehouse staff takes to unpack, scan and shelve the titles. Sometimes, during this 2-week period, demand for the title falls off or disappears.
In the year we published the book with the $100,000.00 marketing campaign, we lost $50,000.00 to Ingram’s business model. That does not included the marketing campaign money. After many years of trying to work within their system, it became apparent that there was no way to work their system to our advantage. When we work with Ingram, we lost money. Period.
How does this tie into printing in China? It’s simple. In order to get a price break for printing in China, the minimum print run for a single title is 10,000 copies. The cost of the order includes freight shipping and customs/duty fees. It does not include insurance in the event that your books, in their metal freight containers, are washed overboard during their journey from China to Seattle. This is actually more common that one might think. Every year between 2,000 and 10,000 containers are lost at sea during fierce ocean storms.
Patriotism and National Morals
We have always prided ourselves on the fact that all of our books are made in the USA. All of our materials are sourced in the here as well. Any work that is not done in-house is completed at one of two different printers we have worked with for a number of years. One of these is in Washington State; the other is located in New York. Both are American owned and operated. As you all know, OHP has struggled financially over the past few years. Given the figures I’ve shared with above and the sudden, unexpected downturn in the economy, we were faced with enormous debts that twice almost cost us our home and have make it necessary for both Jennifer and I to take outside jobs. Because we know first-hand how hard it is to find work, it only makes sense for us to make the choice to employ American workers.
Finally, there is the simple fact that China is a communist country. Their history of human rights violations coupled with their complete lack of disregard for the effect their economic choices have on the world has made this a n0-brainer. We spend $100,000.00 a year on printing. We’re certainly not going to pour that money into the Chinese economy.
We both understand that it’s difficult to sell a book that is significantly more expensive that a similar book on the shelf. It takes more effort a lot of drive and some creative thinking outside the box to make your book a must-have, whether you’re presenting it to an individual or negotiating a commission sale through a bookstore. But given the alternative, we are as confident in our decision to stay with our US-based printers as we are in your abilities to use this information to educate and engage people about why OHP is so firmly committed to these ideals.
