Publishing Companies That Use Outsourcing
Outsourcing is all over the financial and business news these days---and it has been for arguably well over a decade. Companies choose to farm out their work all over the world for a host of reasons. Usually, it's all in the economics: A publishing company that is spending $2 to have a book or a book's element manufactured in the United States might spend 25 cents for the same manufactured element from a Hong Kong or Shanghai factory.
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What Is Outsourcing?
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Publishing companies---like any other business---want to spend the least amount of money on the production of books and get the most money out of them. As production costs have soared in the United States, publishing companies have looked overseas to manufacturing facilities like printing and paper companies for a way to reduce costs. Overall, publishing companies want to ensure that their profit margins remain as wide as possible at a time when printing and binding in the United States is costing more money than they are willing to spend.
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A Quick History
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Before the late 1980s, when outsourcing to countries like China and India became the rule rather than the exception, publishing companies sought to do all their work in house. "In house" means that the editing, proofreading, designing (of layouts), and any illustrations happened within the publishing company; the company's own employees performed all the tasks associated with producing a finished book. In the case of packagers (a kind of publisher), in-house writers would also write the book instead of using authors from outside the company. By in-house production standards, outsourcing was not preferable but sometimes necessary. If the publishing company was lucky enough to have too much work for its in-house staff, it would outsource the extra---or spillover---work outside the company or to facilities overseas.
Contemporary Considerations
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These days, outsourcing is the rule. In a time when many publishing companies are downsizing but still hoping to grow their profits, outsourcing is a necessity. The fact is, printing companies in Hong Kong charge impressively less than American printing companies. But some American publishing companies will not outsource, and instead prefer to raise the price of their books so that they can maintain an allegiance to production in the United States, printing at domestic facilities.
Negative Consequences
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Publishing companies that outsource may enjoy a greater profit on their materials because of the low costs of production, but they also take big risks with quality. When a Chinese factory must receive special directions for a book from 6,000 miles away, and in a foreign language, the product can suffer serious setbacks. In addition, the added shipping time can force publishing programs to push due dates forward and interrupt progress while the staff waits for a printing sample.
Considerations
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Whether to print overseas or print in the United States (raising product prices) is controversial. Some believe that the phenomenon of the "boutique" book answers these questions: It's a beautiful, attractive, and very expensive cloth-bound book. Publishers can print it in the United States despite higher production costs, because they are relying on its high market price to cover the costs of avoiding outsourcing.
References
- Photo Credit "A full collection" is Copyrighted by Flickr user: basykes (Bev Sykes) under the Creative Commons Attribution license.
