Where are you based?
Imprint Digital has moved half a dozen times. After offset, I moved into academic publishing and then digital printing. Our first digital press (bought around 1990) was an HP LaserJet rigged up in the spare room of a country cottage. We then moved to a converted farm building on an equestrian centre in the Devon countryside and then (at the peak of Covid lockdown) into a purpose-built factory
How many staff do you have?
10, some of whom are part-time
What does your firm do?
We print short-run books and journals
What’s your typical customer?
Publishers, from small presses through to Yale University Press, Summersdale and Cambridge University Press
Which geographic areas do you serve?
Mainly UK, but we also have customers in Ireland and France
What’s your USP?
French-flap paperbacks and ‘proper’ hardbacks
What equipment do you run?
Canon and Ricoh presses and post-press kit from Horizon, Zechini, Samed, Prontotec, Opus and Rokin
What’s been your proudest achievement in the past few years?
Printing this year’s Costa Book of the Year for Peepal Tree Press. The Mermaid of Black Conch, by Monique Roffey, won the Costa Novel award and then carried off the overall Book of the Year
How is business at the moment?
Like many book printers we only accessed the furlough scheme for a handful of staff for a couple of weeks last year. We also declined all offers of government loans as we only buy a new machine when we have the cash in the bank
What’s your team’s favourite biscuit?
Greggs doughnuts (our Friday treat)
