Andrew and Kay Hingeley, the two people who run KainosPrint and Kainosbookprinting, bring to the business a unique blend of experience which they bring to bear on every book project they are involved with.

Both Andrew and Kay spent the best part of 20 years as booksellers, working variously for Keswick Book Depot in Flinders Lane, Melbourne, Word Bookstore in suburban Melbourne (Andrew opened the first Word Bookstore), Collins Booksellers in suburban Melbourne and Geelong, in their own bookshop in Geelong and Angus and Robertson in Geelong and in Canberra.

This enormous experience gives them an intimate insight as to how the book trade works, as well as an excellent instinct for what sells and doesn’t sell in bookshops. They are able to assess and warn of potential problems with books, such as cover design and editorial issues, and advise about pricing. They can advise concerning a whole raft of other things such as book promotion and marketing, discount structures expected by booksellers and publishers, and the whole notion of “sale or return”. They are, of course, happy to pass on the benefit of this experience to their customers.

In addition, Andrew and Kay, along with colleague John MacLulich, are digital printing pioneers.

Digital printing first burst onto the scene at a trade show in the UK in 1983. Around 1987 both Andrew and Kay, and John, had installed their first digital presses so they have been using digital printing equipment for the best part of thirty years — pretty much the entire life of digital printing — so they are vastly experienced — probably the most experienced digital printing operators in Australia. They were pioneers — with all the pain that entailed — when digital printing first appeared on the scene in the 1980s. They’ve had vast experience, operated all sorts of presses, and probably forgotten more than most people have ever learnt about digital printing.

Digital printing has revolutionised book printing. It has provided authors with the opportunity to self-publish, thus by-passing the whole publishing industry, and enabling authors to retain the considerable margin they would otherwise lose to publishers. Self publishers can test the market with very small runs, and (perhaps surprisingly), retain greater control over both design and quality. Furthermore, authors can “print on demand”, printing a small run, then reprinting when the first run is sold out, and so on. This strategy greatly reduces the financial outlay otherwise required. Authors of specialist interest books such as family histories, local histories, year 12 school books, children’s books, fund raising books, theological journals, specialist medical books, and a vast array of other topics can print in quantities they can realistically expect to sell. There are many resources available on the internet to help self publishers prepare, print, then publicise their books.

This vast experience of bookselling and digital printing is available to Kainos Books’ customers.