Faber Finds: your own private printing press

Faber & Faber chief executive Stephen Page explains how new technology could revive hundreds of beloved books

Each year the news that more than 120,000 new books were published in Britain gives cause for hue and cry - and rightly. So why is Faber seeking to bring back into print over 1,000 books?

Printing on demand the old fashioned way: Joseph Gutenberg

The life of most new books is short, largely due to a lack of demand. Publishers duplicate and compete; one successful book spawns a host of unnecessary copycats. However, the quiet deaths that attract no attention are the books for which there is a small demand - a fluttering life of word-of-mouth recommendation and niche interest - and which fall out of print because of the economics of reprinting.
Traditionally, to reprint a book economically meant printing at least 2,000 or 3,000 copies - occasionally fewer, but not easily. Many good books have gone out of print as their audience has dwindled.
Excellent books, however small their audience, deserve an ongoing life. Much that is published is not excellent, nor does it need to be to turn the wheel of the books industry. However, at the heart of Faber's new imprint, Faber Finds, is the thrilling thought that the digital revolution holds the key to the resuscitation of many high-quality titles by good writers as printed books, not digital files.
Read the full Stephen Page article at The Telegraph online.