Books overboard! Supply chain headaches leave publishing all at seaGuardian 7 Feb 2022
…The strain on the book industry’s supply chain coincides with soaring demand for print books during the pandemic. Print book sales in the US were up 8.9% in 2021 compared with 2020, which was already up 8.2% compared with 2019….[But] book printing capacity has diminished over the last decade.…Printers have not been able to keep up with the increased demand…Paper has also been harder to find…[Books] that require a lot of color like cookbooks and art books, are typically printed in Asia, where the cost of printing is cheaper. But like many industries trying to ship goods across oceans, delays abound….
Some books have had their release dates pushed back several times, which leads to “domino effects”, affecting pre-order campaigns and events….Independent booksellers have started to change the way they order books…predicting what new titles will be popular, investing in titles they want to promote and reserving copies in case stock runs low. Booksellers have also been recommending more backlist titles – books that are not considered new releases – to customers, encouraging them to buy books they already have in stock….
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/feb/07/publishing-supply-chain-problems-lost-at-sea
