Is there a similar opportunity in digitally printing magazines on-demand as has proved to be the case with books?

At last week's Publishing Expo event IPC manufacturing director Jasper Scott urged Polestar's Barry Hibbert and Wyndeham's Paul Utting not to bother investing in the sort of technology that could [theoretically] produce personalised magazines, on the basis that the business model simply didn't work for publishers such as IPC.

I'm in agreement that the complexities of producing personalised titles would not have a proportionate business benefit for many publishing organisations, particularly in the consumer market. However, I do think there should be a viable business opportunity in producing short runs and one-off on-demand copies of non-personalised magazines, not least as a way of reducing supply chain wastage.

It's a moot point whether on-demand would ever be deemed adequate for the world of glossy mags, and there are the finishing and insert issues to consider too, but that's only a problem if you're intent on exactly replicating an existing product. A glance at HP's Magcloud - the only on-demand magazine printing platform I'm currently aware of - shows there is no shortage of high-end lifestyle titles available, and household names sit alongside niche titles from edgy independents. The margins look to have potential appeal, too. An example being Glossy Magazine, which is selling a 100pp issue for $25.00 on the site.  

In business-to-business the opportunity could be huge, too. If the dots were to be joined effectively it would allow publishers to maximise revenues from back issues and those specialist supplements that somehow always end up being out of stock; while at the same time reducing the sort of speculative print runs that result in the production of boxes and boxes of obsolete print. Then there's test marketing, and the opportunity to produce titles economically that are of ultra-special interest.

The more I think about it, the more sense it makes, although it would require a change of mindset about unit costs - just as print on-demand has in book publishing already. But as nobody bar HP seems to be really pushing it, what am I missing?