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SPECIAL ISSUE |
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COURIER ACQUIRES BOOK-MART PRESS We're pleased to announce that Book-mart Press, Inc. of North Bergen, NJ, has joined the Courier family. Book-mart is a full-service book manufacturer specializing in quick turnaround of short to medium runs of softcover and hardcover books. The company has earned a strong reputation and loyal customer following in New York and the surrounding areas for its high quality and responsive customer service. With this acquisition, Courier, already the largest book manufacturer in the Northeast, becomes the leading short-run provider on the East Coast. "Book-mart significantly strengthens our service offering," said James F. Conway III, Chairman and CEO of Courier Corporation, "enabling us to meet customer book manufacturing needs of any size with efficiency. Book-mart has been extraordinarily successful in short to medium runs due primarily to the talent of its management and staff. They are an important asset to Courier, and I know our customers are going to enjoy doing business with them at the first opportunity to do so." "We are very fortunate to have found an acquisition partner who recognizes and complements our strengths," remarked Gary Gluckow, CEO of Book-mart. "Courier offers additional printing and binding capabilities our customers can benefit from as well as electronic prepress and other services. They're known for very responsive customer service, as are we. Both customer bases will benefit from the association."  Book-mart will retain its identity and its current management while becoming fully integrated into Courier's business structure and its enterprise-wide communication network encompassing five facilities. Make that six! The Right Run Length And Everything Else You Need In the competitive publishing marketplace, if you think you can sell 750 copies of a book, that's exactly the number of copies you ought to print. If the title does well, you may want to print another 750 copies fast. If it does really well, you may need 5,000, 10,000, or even 100,000 copies. If your book manufacturer is Courier, you can utilize the same source throughout the lifecycle of a title for fast, high-quality, responsive service each time - no matter how many copies you order. For very short runs of 5 to 500 copies, Courier offers on-demand DocuTech electronic printing. Beginning at around 300 copies, Courier provides fast and efficient sheet-fed printing, and at several thousand copies and above, Courier's web press services will meet a wide range of printing requirements, including four-color printing and very light-weight paper printing. And for any run length, we offer a complete range of hardcover and softcover binding options. Courier also provides complete electronic prepress, end user order fulfillment, media replication, copyright clearance, and project management services. We're a one-stop shop for all your book manufacturing needs. For Courier Customers An Introduction to Book-mart Press Book-mart, located in North Bergen, NJ, was founded in 1977. It has increased revenues every year since then by focusing on the short- to medium-run market and getting consistently better at serving it. The company provides full-service manucturing under one roof for single-color books, including excellent quality case binding and one-, two- and four-color printing of covers or dustjackets. A typical Book-mart press run is 2,000 copies, although the company routinely handles runs as low as 300 and will also go higher. Titles include college textbooks, reference books, scholarly publications, journals, professional trade books, workbooks, manuals, and directories. The company has many sheet-fed presses and both perfect and case binding equipment. Book-mart is known for high quality and fast turnarounds. In fact, many publishers consider Book-mart the fastest book manufacturer in the industry. The company takes its publishers' needs very seriously and never misses a schedule. Under certain circumstances, rush jobs can be completed in a single day. Efficiency is a key element in every aspect of the Book-mart workflow, from generating quotes and writing orders to quality control, packing, and shipping. For Book-mart Customers An Introduction to Courier Courier, headquartered in North Chelmsford, MA, is the largest book manufacturer in the Northeast, the 6th largest in the U.S. The company has been in the printing and publishing business for over 170 years and has 1,200 employees and six plants in Massachusetts, Philadelphia, Indiana, and now New Jersey. Founded in 1824 as a newspaper publisher, Courier soon diversified into other printing markets. In 1878, the company printed the first Boston telephone directory, and for the next 111 years, would print nearly every directory published in New England. Courier also revolutionized forms printing, becoming the largest full-service insurance forms supplier in the country. And, as a book printer, Courier has been a pioneer in such areas as electronic prepress services, on-demand printing, and custom textbooks and coursepacks. Today, Courier's business is helping customers manage the process of creating and distributing their intellectual property. Book manufacturing is a key part of our business, but so are related services, such as copyright management and end user fulfillment. In fulfillment, for example, we offer turnkey project management, media replication, kitting and assembly, call center services and customized reporting. That's just one example of Courier's thorough approach to meeting customer needs. Two Sons of Bookmen Jim Conway, Chairman and CEO of Courier Corporation, and Gary Gluckow, CEO of Book-mart Press both spent their early years in the book manufacturing business working with their fathers. Jim Conway joined Courier in 1983 as Manager of Business Development, while his dad, James Conway, Jr., was CEO. The younger Conway worked his way up the ranks, becoming President and COO in 1988. "My dad taught me the most important things I know," says Conway, "which are to make my customers happy and to keep my eyes open for every opportunity to add value to Courier services." Gary Gluckow started Book-mart with his father Seymour in 1977, and they built the company together for many years. Today, Gary runs it with his wife Michelle, Vice President of Marketing, in much the same way as he and his dad had envisioned 20 years before. "Our strategy was to identify a niche and to stick to it and become the low-cost, high-quality provider in that niche," recalls Gluckow, "and that's exactly what we've done." |
Send your questions and comments to french@courier.com |
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