The fourth quarter is approaching. In the book industry, it decides how the annual balance sheet turns out. It is the quarter of the Frankfurt Book Fair in whatever form it takes, the quarter of the Christmas business, the big sales. Many flags have been sent, embargo periods and delivery dates are printed on them, the requirements are calculated.
Many books that appear for the book fair or later do not yet exist, they are just about to hit the home stretch of production. But there has been a state of emergency there for months. Agreed deliveries of paper become more expensive after the contract is signed, print runs have to be confirmed earlier than usual, time windows for printing close unexpectedly, supplies of printing material stagnate because additives such as color pigments that are supplied from Asia are missing. “The red lamps are shining everywhere,” says Alexandra Stender, the head of the production department at Suhrkamp, and it sounds no different with Markus Desaga, the spokesman for Random House, a group with a large number of publishers.
When the publishers’ chief buyers complain about delivery quantities and cascading price increases, it is about the paper and cardboard that are needed for book covers and brochure covers, and sometimes not just for book covers. Suhrkamp now also produces thick children’s cardboard books that require a lot of cardboard. And the rivalry for paper quotas goes hand in hand with cascades of price increases.
Historians have only recently been concerned with the history of paper
The logistical dimension of the publishing business emerges in this turbulence, which leads to rapid reactions, corrections to planning processes and a great talent for improvisation. It is mostly in the shadows, not least because the Sunday speeches talk so much about books as a cultural asset, about intellectual or even spiritual resources. But publishers do not turn raw manuscripts into books by editing them alone.
The employee of a paper mill in Saxony checks a tank with a cellulose mixture.
(Photo: imago stock & people)
They have always been dependent on the development of printing technology, paper production and, last but not least, the paper trade. Literature, one of the best historians of her own material prerequisites, has been telling about it since the early modern period, for example in the enchanting chapter of the “Continuatio” of “Simplicius Simplicissimus”, in which a piece of paper – not by chance in the lavatory – tells the story of his life.
It belongs to the genre in which things, equipment, commodities tell their story like the heroes of picaresque novels in first-person form. The adventures, which were told under the title “Adventures of a Quire of Paper” in an English magazine of the late 18th century, lead from the emergence of paper from linen rags into the spheres of circulation, packaging and trade. It is only recently that paper historians have followed the wave of literature and, like Daniel Bellingradt recently, discovered the key function of the paper and raw materials trade in his book “Vernetzt Papiermärkte” (2020).
Everything that deviates from the standard formats becomes a risk area
The production departments in the publishing houses observe the international sea freight logistics, the lack of wood or the shortage of Euro pallets, which not so long ago cost half as much as they do now, with some attention. Everything that deviates from the standard formats begins to become a risk area. And tried and tested precautionary habits such as the one not to clunky with the first edition now harbor risks. Leisurely conditions for re-runs, which you want to order at short notice when the Christmas business is picking up, are not to be expected.
Not least because corona effects have an impact on the international, globalized network of supplier industries for the book industry, it has trouble maintaining its well-established routines. The publishers are no different from the construction companies waiting for wood deliveries and the auto industry, which fears for a replenishment of microchips because so many chips are going to booming consumer electronics during the corona crisis.
For years, the proportion of graphic paper required for book, magazine and newspaper production in paper mills has been declining, while the proportion of packaging paper and cardboard is growing. The upswing in online trading during the Corona crisis intensified this process, as did the pharmaceutical industry’s need for packaging material. The demand from publishers for slip-ons, children’s book boards and paperboard boxes has to assert itself against potent competitors in the increasingly lucrative packaging market.
Europe depends on imports from South America or Asia
Now the German paper industry is not a small light, it is the fourth largest in the world. It sells most of its production in the local area on the European market, but it is dependent on global markets for its raw material. Waste paper recycling alone is not enough. Up until the 19th century, rags were the raw material in paper production, so it was closely linked to textile production. The transition to wood pulp seemed to open up an unlimited resource.
Wood is still the most important source for modern cellulose. Europe currently needs more pulp than it produces itself; it is dependent on imports from South America or Asia. In this global market, however, there is a glaring excess demand due to the largest growth market, China, which is increasingly giving preference to fresh fibers over waste paper.
In December 2020 the price per ton for cellulose was 650 euros, now in August 2021 it is 1000 euros. Once again, the paper could continue its adventure tales. His current picaresque novel would tell of forests that were cut down too quickly, of the appeal of cardboard and the speed of circulation in the warehouses of online retailers, and, in a little digression, also of his difficulties in turning himself into a children’s book made of strong cardboard.