An interesting snippet emerged while talking to the bosses at St Ives about the firm’s interim results. The company has invested some £5m in a Timsons/Kodak/Muller Martini integrated digital book production line for its Clays operation – a world first for this particular setup. The flexibility of “industrial” book production using digital printing is obviously an important service for Clays to be able to offer, in the face of CPI’s major investment in HP technology and with digital lines going in left, right and centre at other book printers. The good news is that having this service has effectively brought some books “back to life” as publishers reap the benefits of digital production. And the new kit is very busy, despite not quite working to its full specification just yet. The not-so-good news from St Ives’ point-of-view is that publishers are perhaps reaping too much of the benefit of this major spend. Chief executive Patrick Martell said that short-run book printing alone “would not be sensible at current prices”. Of course, the Clays offering is about much more than ink on paper and the other services it offers such as secure warehousing and fulfilment mean that it is negotiating large, overall contracts with its publishing clients that are about more than cost per copy. But as Martell observed, unfortunately print does not have a great reputation when it comes to retaining the benefits of the technology it spends a great deal of money on. He cited the example of the advent of computer-to-plate, where the huge gains of this technology shift were transferred more or less entirely to the bottom lines of customers, rather than printers themselves. Something to ponder for all print bosses investing serious sums in new technology of one sort or another. Ensure you and your customers are on the same page when it comes to who will benefit.