Zeitfracht Expands Print-on-Demand Services for Publishers

Zeitfracht, in collaboration with the printing service provider CPI, is now also printing hardcover books in Erfurt logistics. This allows the company to serve print-on-demand (PoD) orders even faster and more sustainably. The expanded offering has immediately led to new customers.

(Erfurt) Among the new customers are the two major academic publishers Springer Nature and De Gruyter, who will now rely on Zeitfracht’s PoD service. In the future, around 1.3 million PoD titles will be offered on the market through Zeitfracht in collaboration with these two publishers.

“We are very pleased with the renowned new additions and the overall increasing interest in our print-on-demand service. Especially in times of strained raw material markets, a demand-oriented and risk-free production is extremely important. We will continuously expand and optimize this area, significantly increasing the availability of titles for our customers, whose stock production and storage are no longer economically viable,” says Thomas Raff, a board member of the Zeitfracht Group and spokesperson for the management of Zeitfracht GmbH. While only softcover books were produced in Erfurt until now, the consolidated PoD printing location in the Thuringian state capital allows for reduced transportation costs. This way, resources can be conserved, and the high speed of Zeitfracht logistics can be utilized directly.

Significantly Larger Number of Titles

“We are pleased that the expanded collaboration makes a significantly larger number of titles from our publishing program available through Zeitfracht, and customers can now receive these much faster,” says Alexander Faust, Director of Production and Internal Operations at De Gruyter. Eric Schmitt, Executive Vice President of Central Procurement at Springer Nature: “We are very happy that our titles can now also be made available to customers in Germany through Zeitfracht via PoD. In addition to constant availability, it is very important for us to contribute further to the sustainability of physical production.”

Use of Unique Technology

Since January 2022, Zeitfracht GmbH has been working with CPI – the leading book printing service provider in Germany. Zeitfracht and CPI offer publishing customers a seamless transition between conventional print runs and ‘Print to Order’ in the Zeitfracht trade assortment or the publishing distribution. In production, CPI and Zeitfracht use a previously unique technology in Germany that manufactures softcover and hardcover books in-house on one machine without setup interruptions.

Photo: © Zeitfracht