What Book-mart Does Best

"We offer one stop shopping and world class service to short and medium run book publishers," says Michelle Gluckow, Book-mart's Executive Vice President. "Complete book manufacturing services: digital and conventional prepress, text printing, component printing, paperback binding, casebinding and more — we do it all under one roof at our North Bergen, NJ facility."

But what really makes Book-mart shine is the "can-do" attitude of everyone in the company. If it's humanly possible, Book-mart Press will get it done! Time after time Book-mart has stepped up and met schedules that other book manufacturers call impossible. When called upon to do so, Book-mart produces books within a few days. As a result, the company has the well-earned reputation as the fastest short-run manufacturer in the industry.

BOOK-MART AT A GLANCE

A Great Marriage!
Courier and Book-mart

July 21st marks the fifth anniversary of the day Book-mart and Courier joined forces. So, what better time than now to reflect on the wonderful relationship the two companies have had, and on how they continue to work together to serve the book publishing community?

Book-mart and Courier entered into their relationship with strikingly similar approaches to their businesses. Each was customer-focused, each offered exceptional service, and each had a management team that was particularly accessible to customers. These commonalties enabled them to hit the ground running immediately after the acquisition. From the start, Book-mart's extensive sheet-fed capabilities have meshed perfectly with the web operations at Courier's other plans, so customers benefit from the wider service offering. Customers are very happy that their Sales Rep can help them with all their jobs, whether the run is 500 or 500,000. And they can rest assured that when their reprint quantity differs dramatically from the prior printing, they can have it printed on the most economical equipment.

A Little History

Gary Gluckow and his father, Seymour, founded Book-mart Press in 1977, opening a plant in North Bergen, NJ, just 15 minutes from midtown Manhattan. They built the company together for many years. "From the very beginning," recalls Gary, "our strategy was to identify a niche, to stick to it, and to become the low-cost, high quality provider in that niche." The niche was the short- to medium-run book market, and the strategy worked. Book-mart's business grew every year through 1997, when they joined the Courier family, and it has continued to grow each year since.

Courier has invested more than $4 million in new equipment at Book-mart in order to increase capacity and improve quality. The investments include a complete digital prepress operation, a cover press, a Kolbus perfect binding line, and a Kolbus casebinding line (both state-of-the-art), and a VBF casemaker.

Today, Book-mart serves a critical role as the short to medium run specialist in Courier's extensive array of book manufacturing operations. Gary serves as President of the company and as a Vice President of Courier Corporation. He continues to run Book-mart with his wife Michelle in much the same way as he and his father envisioned 25 years ago.

Right From the Start Tip

When producing your designs to print to Book-mart or any other Courier plant, be sure to create your frames and ruled boxes with the frame drawing function in your page layout application. This will guarantee precise corners. If you use individual rules to create your boxes, it's extremely difficult to get the lines to meet exactly at the corners.