Document Management
Written by Michael Gilleland
President of Progeny Press

When Craig Shuler stopped by our offices in 2000, we were ready to make the change to on-demand printing, but we had not found any printer who could meet our quality demands in a satisfactory time frame. We publish 40- to 120-page study guides for literature, with some titles selling a couple hundred copies each year and others selling a couple thousand. Some of our titles cycle from year to year, moving up and down in sales quantities as novels' popularity fluctuate, or even as movies based on novels are released. We needed a flexible printer who could provide quality printing at reasonable cost and in short runs so we could better manage our inventory. After several meetings with Craig and his staff at DigiCOPY, and a few trial runs, it became clear that DigiCOPY was going to exceed our expectations. Within a few months we had transfered all our printing to DigiCOPY.

In the nine years since we started working with DigiCOPY, they have repeatedly adapted to our needs and even shown us how we can improve our own product. At the time we started working with DigiCOPY, we had around 65 titles, printed in a looseleaf format. In 2007, we published our 92nd title, but we also changed formats from looseleaf to perfect bound and added CD-ROM versions of every title. To add to the challenge, we had to make the switch from looseleaf to perfect bound at exactly the same time for every title while keeping supplies to our retailers running smoothly. Then, to make things even more challenging, we suddenly realized that our CD-ROM versions (92 titles!) had to be ready to debut at a Florida tradeshow in June. I don't know how popular we were at DigiCOPY that year, but DigiCOPY was very popular with us! What was, in essence, a complete revision and reintroduction of 184 products went off virtually without a hitch. By the time our annual catalog came out in August 2007 (which DigiCOPY also handled for us), all ordering and printing processes were again running like clockwork, but with 184 essentially new products.

I think the only way our company made it through that spring and summer was because of the DigiCOPY staff's commitment to quality and their ability to share out work with their other stores-- particularly, in this case, the Eau Claire and Stevens Point stores--to keep production moving smoothly. We were impressed at the seamless communication and production between the facilities. One of the things I like best about working with the DigiCOPY people is that they are always innovating and finding ways to make my life easier. When we started working with them in 2000, we were sending our product files to them on CD-ROM once or twice a year. With their .ftp site, we now can update our product files at any time of the day or night and just notify them by e-mail that we've made a change. We never have to worry about whether we have updated our titles or made a needed correction when we reprint; we know it's already done. They currently are working on a procedure that will make our order fulfillment to retailers a seamless process.

Over the years, we have found DigiCOPY so efficient and economical that they now provide all of our printing needs, from business cards to advertising, signs to catalogs, books to CDs. They provide us with design consultation that has revitalized some of our promotional materials, and they have helped us branch out into publishing plays and original fiction, bringing us together with the professionals who can best help us produce the quality and format that fits our needs. They truly are partners in our success.