Going zero inventory allows me enormous flexibility that is worth the hit on margins that I take — if I even take a hit. I don’t pay for shipping. I don’t pay for invoicing and collection. I don’t pay for gas or envelopes or packaging tape. I don’t lose a half-hour of time I could be spending making “real” money writing about 1:1 printing (grin) by driving to the Post Office.

If there is a spike in orders, I don’t worry about whether or not I have inventory on hand. LSI just takes care of it. If a single order comes in, I don’t have to wonder when I’ll have time to go to the Post Office. I just log in and order a one-off and let LSI take care of it. It allows me to better manage my time and focus on the elements of my business that are the most profitable without me having to give up the elements (book sales) that aren’t.

It’s a whole different mentality about book publishing than I had when I went into this eight years ago (when I was “printing on demand,” inventorying all of my titles, and fulfilling them myself).

This is the transition that will ultimately take place in this industry — and one that IS taking place already. It’s not about cost per book or print on demand. It’s not even about saving money on warehousing or obsolescence. It’s about building a business model around the flexibility that this business model offers. Like 1:1 printing, Web-to-print, and every other application digital print production enables, it’s about allowing digital printing to completely transform how you think about you build your business. It’s a whole new way of thinking about things that is completely untethered to traditional ways of thinking.

Heidi Tolliver-Nigro
Digital Printing Reports
http://www.digitalprintingreports.com