plan ahead for publishing

If you’re planning a holiday print run of your current or future poetry collection, the Publishing Team at Village Books in Bellingham urges you to get started now. In an email to publishing and print-on-demand clients this week, they said (in part)

As many of you are already aware, the book industry has not escaped the effects of the pandemic and many of our partners are struggling with supply chain issues. Wood shortages create paper shortages, which drives up book-printing costs, and worker shortages due to COVID-19 leads to delays in packing/shipping/transporting books. We are anticipating delayed printing times of 3-4 weeks for any order of paperback books, and 4-6 weeks for hardcover books.

Here’s what this means for you: if you are needing to order a print run of your books before the holidays, we need to know by October 15th, 2021. This is the suggested cut-off date from our printers to hopefully ensure your books arrive on time. We cannot guarantee that any orders placed after this date will arrive before the holidays.

The concern expressed by Village Books is confirmed by a Bloomberg article that appeared in Tuesday’s Seattle Times, Paper shortage hits American retailers when they need it most.

The bottom line: start planning now and contact your printer to make sure the materials you need will be available.

Thanks to Luther Allen for the heads up.

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