Today’s photo book offerings are leading the rapid growth of the personal photo products market, a segment that now represents a vital revenue opportunity for specialty retailers and photofinishers. We’ve zoomed in on two leading equipment makers whose goals are to help their clients benefit from this high-margin product category.

On Demand Machinery Reinvents Itself to Become a Leader in the Photo Book Arena
On Demand Machinery (ODM), with roots in graphic arts and printing machinery going back to the 1920s, now designs and manufactures the equipment to produce photo books. Marketed through various retail channels, its customer list includes online giants such as Shutterfly and Snapfish, plus major retailers and fulfillment houses.

Based in Elizabeth, New Jersey, ODM is positioned quite literally where the rubber meets the road in book publishing. Its mission: To supply state-of-the art machinery that enables its clients to turn out large volumes of high-quality photo books efficiently and cost-effectively, and to satisfy customers that may order anything from a single one-off version of a wedding album to a dozen holiday gift books to thousands for commercial purposes.

“My father, John Jacobson, Sr., bought what had evolved into American Graphic Arts in 1985,” recalls John Jacobson, Jr., ODM’s CEO, “and I joined the company in 1987 after graduating from RIT. We specialized in used machinery, but because of my father’s strong background in bookbinding machinery and his commitment to fine craftsmanship, we found ourselves delving more into equipment rebuilding and custom retrofitting. By the early 1990s, when my brother Kevin joined the company, we were at a crossroads. We could no longer find the used machinery that was our mainstay, so we decided to manufacture our own. We started with a simple hand case-making line consisting of a turning machine, case gauge, gluer and rotary press.

“In the mid-90s and the advent of on-demand printing, it became clear the book publishing business model would be forever changed,” notes Jacobson. “We could foresee that the need for binding equipment capable of creating one book at a time would expand exponentially. To meet that demand, we moved forward with a line of hardcover equipment at the 1997 On Demand Digital Printing and Publishing Show. There we received encouragement from representatives of Xerox, which motivated us to refine our efforts. Soon after, we formed On Demand Machinery as our marketing vehicle for a line of hardcover bookbinding machinery that accommodates book runs of any size using relatively low-cost, easy-to-operate equipment.

“Today, our core system includes a case-making line that produces the hardcover, a ‘casing-in’ machine that binds and glues the pages into the hardcover, and a ‘building-in’ machine that creates the final book by pressing the pages together and forming the joint area. Extras include a Super Sewing machine for creating thread-bound books and a die-cutting machine for creating windows in covers. We’re also working on a series of even more automated machinery. One of our goals is to enable our clients to create more books in a day with fewer people.

“We’ve just released an exciting version of the ODM book manufacturing package,” says Jacobson. “It includes our new Sticker XXL casing-in machine that accommodates large-format books up to 18x18 inches and up to 4 inches thick, and the new Smasher XXL that puts the book together into a perfect joint using hydraulic pressure and heat. We are able to offer them at the same price as our previous line—about $90K. Yes, that’s a considerable investment for the average photo retailer, but you have to put it in perspective—many of our top clients have 15 or more HP Indigo printers online and they run about a $500K a pop!

“We take pride in the fact that ODM machines are designed to produce books that not only convey the image of quality and permanence but actually deliver it,” says Jacobson. “Our machinery is totally flexible in terms of book size and cover type, has the ability to create a staggering variety of highly marketable custom products, and is all designed and manufactured here in the USA. The end-user market segment we’re aiming at is the professional and serious enthusiast who wants a very high-end $150 book that maximizes high-margin profit potential, as opposed to a $30 book that has to be sold in high volume to make it a viable revenue stream.

“I’m pleased to say we’ve become a household name in this market, and we had record profits in 2008. So far we’ve experienced a modest decrease in 2009 due to the economy, but we still have a shot at equaling last year’s performance because gift books sold in the last quarter are such a large part of the digital photo book business. ODM was the first with the latest and that’s why we’ve been able to capture a big piece of the expanding market for real books.” odmachinery.com

Fastbind USA: Expanding to Meet the Photo Book Needs of Retailers
Partnering with a Finnish maker of high-precision case-making and binding machines, this innovative company expanded its product line to serve photo retailers with cost-effective photo book manufacturing solutions.

Fastbind USA, located in Miramar, Florida, was founded in the 1990s to develop and market the new and expanding line of photo book and album-making machines manufactured by Maping (pronounced “mapping”) Co. of Espoo, Finland, near Helsinki. Both partners saw the vast potential of the expanding photo book market that was just getting underway and concluded their most effective strategy was to target medium-size retailers and photo studios that wanted to produce books in-house. To meet their needs, Fastbind and Maping configured a line of high-quality, moderately priced solutions geared to on-demand book publishing in small and medium quantities and began marketing them in the U.S. in 2002. Their overarching goal: Enabling retailers to jump into the lucrative, high-margin photo book market by offering reliable easy-to-use equipment at attractive price points.

“We provide equipment that allows successful photo specialty retailers to deliver the products they expect to sell and have been selling,” observes Kent Dalzell, president of Fastbind USA. “That includes traditional photo albums using single-sided higher end prints to provide a 180º panoramic view of two-page spreads that’s perfectly flat with no valley or gap in the center. However, the fastest growing segment of the retail market is photo books that are assembled from two-sided laser or inkjet prints on paper. Many dealers understand the album side but want to move into photo books. We help them to deliver custom products to their customers that are several notches above the generic books offered by online giants like Snapfish, and these upgrades all increase profit potential.

“For example, our case-making equipment can produce a standard leatherette cover with a square port that reveals the first picture,” notes Dalzell, “but we can also create impressive upscale custom binders using the whole picture as the entire outside hardcover. These products set us apart from standard Internet books, adding real and perceived value to the product. After case making, the next step is biding the inside contents into book or album form and matching it with the cover.

“Here’s a broad overview of our product line,” says Dalzell. The case makers for on-demand hardcovers range from the Fastbind Casematic Lite at $1,750—a basic, efficient, manual unit for cover formats up to 9x12 inches—to the top-of-the-line Fastbind Casematic H46 Pro, which handles covers up to 18x18 and incorporates features that enhance operating speed. Perfect binding machines that produce a classic book with a spine run from $3,995 to $5,995, and album-making binders range from $2,450 to $4,995, depending on size and features. None of this is fully automatic ultra-high-volume machinery costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, but we would be thrilled if our customers become so successful they outgrow us and turn to friendly competitors like ODM for the big stuff. If that happened, our equipment would have paid for itself 100 times over!

“We’re also very excited about our new Fastbind BooXter Duo,” says Dalzell, “ a new kind of compact, multiple-use perfect binder that sells for only $1,995 and binds any format from A6 up to SRA3. Thanks to its electronic stapling unit, it handles photo paper and coated stock as easily as normal copy paper, and it turns out professional looking photo books at a lower unit cost. It offers a wide range of finishing options, including hardcovers, softcovers, paper covers, stripe backs and simple stapled back binding, and it’s easy to go from one finishing step to another without intermediary setups or special adjustments. With the BooXter, you can staple a book and put it into the hands of a customer in 30 seconds—an ideal solution for turning out a few quick books or a relatively low-volume order at high speed. This is precisely in line with the needs of many retailers who can now compete directly at the point of sale with what’s available on the Internet. Furthermore, this unit can be operated by anyone with no training whatsoever.

“How’s business? It’s absolutely fantastic,” exults Dalzell. “Sales for May, June and July equaled our record-breaking figures for 2008, which were up 40 percent from 2007. To do this in 2009 is spectacular. We’re successful because our products are made to very tight tolerances and turn out books of exceptional quality at very competitive prices. Do well, try hard and be honest—that’s our formula for success.” fastbind.com