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Skyscraper Digital Publishing
 
Main Business Activity: Digital printing on demand

Sector: Printing  

Knowledgebase Organisation: Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication

“The accademics very much fitted in with what we were doing”.


“It felt like the advisor had the experience of having been in business. When we ran through different things with him he gave us the confidence that what we’re doing was okay”.

“Jamie was experienced in business and experienced in our field, his knowledge was invaluable”.

  • Intellectual capital issues such as copy right and libel dealt with,
  • Back end processes enhanced to improve efficiency,
  • New target market of librarians and archives identified.

Main Business Activity - On-line publishing and internet technology development

Project Outline - Creating a framework for their print-on-demand service, considering IP issues and the development of robust terms and conditions for clients using their services

 

Skyscraper Digital Publishing is an established online publishing business with a very clear understanding of cutting-edge technology. They are keen to exploit their knowledge commercially with a print-on-demand service for libraries and archivists.

Many people think a publisher is in the business of producing written and visual products only but Simon Worthington, Co-Director of Skyscraper Digital Publishing, sees Skyscraper very much as a firm with two parts. He says, “one is an editorial group that commissions, does research and publishes. The other is an internet technology development company. But the two kind of go hand in hand”. Simon and his team passionately believe both parts are equally creative and very much intertwined.

Through the dual functions of the company they have developed a process that allows books to be printed on demand. Using the technology you can produce a digital file for a book and provide it for printing to a partner located anywhere in the world. “The great thing about print-on-demand”, says Simon “is you can print one copy at a time in different locations”. What makes Simon’s technology exciting is that all elements of publishing from editing, layout and marketing to ordering, printing and distribution can be handled online. This significantly reduces the capital needed to produce a book and it changes the economics of publishing, so that you can consider titles with a small but relatively high value audience that would otherwise remain unpublished.  

At the same time as developing this concept, Skyscraper also plan to make information about the book for sale available online to bookshops, library services and online retailers. Skyscraper needed help to take their concept to the next stage and so applied for the Knowledgebase Collaboration project. Simon was partnered with Jamie King, a specialist in networked media at Ravensbourne College. “What we did with the programme”, says Simon “was to create a framework in which we could automate our print-on-demand service”.

In theory Skyscraper’s online print-on-demand service could be used by anyone to create any book, legal or otherwise. Therefore one of the areas Simon and Jamie worked on was intellectual property issues such as copyright and libel associated with producing a book on behalf of another party. “We were handling someone else’s content and the main thing was we didn’t want to be responsible for what other people did inside their book”, says Simon. Jamie gave them experience based advice on how to draw up the terms and conditions for clients to use their service.

Skyscraper had already been working with cultural producers and the cultural industry, as they believe this sector is the natural market for their service. Jamie helped guide them in a more specific direction, he suggested they target and market their service to libraries and archives. Simon is now talking to a contemporary music society that still prints scores in house. “The way they currently print them they could never afford to have many products available”. By using our online service they could make their entire collection of scores available, for very little outlay, to musicians eager to play more unusual material.

Simon is extremely pleased with the progress Skyscraper made with their print-on-demand concept, whilst engaged in the programme. He is currently planning to recruit new staff as the team is already working at full capacity. “We’re hoping to do it in two stages, with an initial funding target of around £130,000”, says Simon. “Ideally we'd firstly like to find a marketing person and a project manager, with some technology behind that”. He is planning on targeting the cultural archives market, “we’re already in that sector and know people like archivists and librarians”, he says. “The programme has put us on the right path and helped us believe this is an achievable goal”.