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tv   Printing of First Ladies  CSPAN  May 2, 2015 10:45am-11:01am EDT

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[inaudible conversations] [machine noises] [machine loses]
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[machine noises] >> the general manager of barry ville graphics, what is the most difficult part of printing of boat? >> organizing process getting the content in, is an organized and scheduled, all the books we do at the same time scheduled property and the customers required dates. >> what is the beginning of the process? >> the content they want to have printed and their design and what they use for the job. >> from the time the material gets to you until the time it rolls out the presses how long
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is that? >> three to four weeks. physically reprint, we do that in the same week. >> tell us about the coming? >> the double day company in the late 1980s, it has been designed for the book manufacturing distribution. that is what it has been doing all these years. it has grown. we increased our customer base. a large customer base we service every year. >> how many books would you get that you publish in a year? >> we do in the neighborhood of 120 million year. >> how many different books? >> thousands. in the thousands. >> what happened since you have been in the business that changed in the printing of
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books? >> the publishers are very conscious of their inventory and their inventory is very costly for them to maintain. they basically have to improve our ability to take care of short runs and the cost effective in doing that so their inventory we can do shorter runs which makes them more profitable. >> a german company? >> that is correct. >> how big is it in this country? what do they own? >> random house which is a publisher. they own office same group the we belong to. said that is in the united states. >> the book business itself. how have you seen it change? how long have you been in it? >> i'm going on my 36th year in the industry.
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basically the quick turns, change of materials, the e-book is coming to digital printing. >> digital printing in the bookstores or e-books affected your business? >> just another part of the business. obviously they are part of the business. we accept at end they service the customer in a different way than we do. we have been very fortunate. the book volume has increased so that doesn't decrease our need as far as what publishers are looking for. >> go through a little bit of the process and how a book moves through here once you have material. >> once the content is receive customers place their order as what material they want to use, we will schedule it, we will put it into the press department which will oppose it in such a manner that it comes out to read
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it. they put on the web press and print it and the office press, take that and take it to the binder and from there we gather signatures, bind it and ship it. >> how many people will actually be in the process as it goes through the assembly law in? >> all told in the manufacturing sector probably 30. they took one shift, 30 people. >> how big a business is this a round country? are there a lot of other companies? competition? >> there is definitely a lot of competition. a lot of acquisitions and mergers and less names of printers. >> how much has the technology
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of printing change and how has it changed? >> a lot of the technology has changed on the front end. setting tight, that type of thing, prepress area has changed quite a bit. every company electronically trying to file an we impose and make it into a product, make a flight out of hand print. the biggest change is on the front end side. >> if a person walks into a bookstore and they see a book, $30, on the cover, is there any way to estimate how much it costs to produce that book of that $30? >> if you dollars less than that, quite a few probably. >> it is unknown that the publishers, about half of the $30 goes to the publisher and the rest will go to a bookstore so that the $15 of the $30. would use a $3?
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>> it could be in that range. i am not really sure. the manufacturing cost for us, we have our cost which is mainly labor, the expense of running the equipment, material like that, all of publishers furnish their material so i don't know what their costs are but ours is strictly manufacturing, labor. >> one or two of the biggest book you printed in the last few years? >> obviously we did a few harry potter books we have done john grisham books, danielle steel, we have also done 50 shades, best seller, recently the days runner series has been prevalent with the movie tie-in, that is very popular. >> what is still exciting about this business after 36 years? >> just a challenge. your manufacturing, basic
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manufacturing. people actually putting their hands in machinery and producing a product and saying i did that and it is not electronic. it is mechanical and they have done something to produce a physical thing. >> where did you grow up? >> wisconsin just south of madison. >> where did you go to school? >> university of wisconsin. >> how did you get into this business? >> one of those summer jobs the lasted 36 years. >> where did you start? >> krieger in wisconsin. >> what did you do in the beginning? >> i was a helper on the floor. >> and then what? >> i worked my way to apprenticeship got my journeymen's card and been fortunate to have some opportunities that came highway and some good people helped me along. >> host: how did you get to buryville, va.? >> guest: i worked for krieger and transferred to kansas in thes. that plant was shut down. i was out of work and buryville was looking to hire people and i
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needed a job and they interviewed me and i accepted a position here, the first time, in 1991. >> host: what is the hardest part of this business? >> guest: having to deal with schedules. it goes back to schedules. we have a lot of people worked here and put a lot of heart and effort into it and we have a tough schedule to meet and people have to work a lot of hours and the schedule is often dictated by the needs of the customers so we get the books out in time. we are -- the employees do more and they're very willing to do it. they have to step up every week one of the tougher things but everyone in this business has been it for a while and understands and appreciates the rewards of that. >> host: if you look at your printing company today or printing press and compare it with when you started, would you have more people on the floor
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now or less? >> how many less? >> guest: i would say 25% somewhere in that regard depending on the process we are talking about. some of the things, technology has improved could be as high as 50% but obviously the cost of labor, trying to improve the process and get more capital always looked at so we reduce our cost and one thing we do is look at the right crew, that is definitely reduced over the years. >> host: how does someone trained to be in this kind of work? >> guest: it is on the job training. you can't go to technical school. they have graphic arts program giving you the basics of it. that is a good foundation to build on but they learn the printing process and things that evolve along the printing process, requirements for customer service or prepress or digital composition.
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all those things are on the job things so tribal knowledge gets passed on from one person to another. >> host: we need a lot about the book business being in trouble because of the e-books and digital and all that. what has been your experience here with the number of books you have been producing over the last two years? >> guest: we have seen this when people first came out we saw they were doing triple digit growth and we were doing double digit decline and basically that has totaled off, we are seeing that level of graphics, we haven't seen a decline at all. we have over 100 million books a year and for the most part our competitors probably say they have not seen any major did in their values. >> host: how far out as a publisher come to you and say i have a book i want you to print? >> guest: if it is a large print
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and the best seller, we might get some advance a large quantity could be a million copies other than that, not a huge amount of time, six weeks eight weeks or something like that and we would be prepared to produce it in large quantity want to reschedule. >> host: go to 50 shades of gray. >> guest: millions and millions of copies. >> host: how much did you bring? >> guest: we did over 15 million to 20 million with all the reprints 15 to 20 million units total, all three volumes of it. that was hot and heavy in 2012. >> host: did you print a lot of harry potter book? >> guest: we did the original harry potter, and basically that was a very big seller obviously and went on to do more volumes,
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editions. >> host: was it bigger than 50 shades of gray? >> guest: it is different. it was a hard cover. it was a bigger undertaking. 50 shades i think 50 shades, all three books in one block of time for one season was probably one of the biggest there ever has been. >> host: how many do you have? >> guest: a total of 600 employees in the building between the three companies, variable graphics, coral graphics and dynamic graphic finishing. >> host: why is this company based in barryville virginia and how far is it from washington? >> guest: we are an hour-and-a-half from washington d.c. and is one of -- back in the 50s and 60s when they had their own manufacturing sites they wanted to find a spot in the country where they had farm people. they would view the farmers as people with mechanical aptitude and could draw them into the
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factories which was the mind-set of doubleday back then. >> host: thank you for your time. >> you are watching booktv on c-span2 with top nonfiction books and doctors every weekend. booktv, television for serious readers. >> several programs this weekend. today booktv coverage of the third annual san antonio book festival, panels include a look at life on the aircraft carrier uss george h. w. bush. internment camps in the united states during world war ii, a latino america and more. tomorrow we are live with john negronson which includes so you think you have been ashamed, the psychopath test and the men who set don't. you will enter your questions from noon until 3:00 eastern on in dead. afterwards, the life of first lady michelle ng obama from her childhood to the white house.
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also this weekend, rod blagojevich talks about being prosecuted along with his brother, former illinois governor rod blagojevich. new york times columnist david brooks dissects the idea of character. former treasury secretary henry paulson takes a look at the evolution of china's capitalist system and much more. 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books every weekend on c-span2. >> theodore dalrymple takes a look at the field of psychology next on booktv. he argues modern-day psychology distorts our criminal justice system and allows children and adults to alleviate personal responsibility for their actions. [applause] >> good evening. thanks for joining us. i am arthur

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