Books are my business: Frank Kelly of Lettertec

The design and print specialist established in 1983 and based in Carrigtwohill, Co Cork, revolves around book production of all kinds

Sat, 10 Feb, 2024 - 01:00

Marjorie Brennan

Frank Kelly is managing director of Lettertec, a design and print specialist established in 1983 and based in Carrigtwohill, Co Cork.

Can you tell me more about Lettertec and what it does?

I started my career with Xerox Corporation in 1979, and then I set up my own business. Lettertec revolves around book production of all kinds.

We have a very large capacity for production; we can produce between 800 and 2,000 books an hour.

Our markets are in education, textbooks and student journals; we’re also in the life sciences business, providing laboratory notebooks and logbooks for companies such as Pfizer.

We would have contracted services as well for producing large volumes of books for third-level institutions and so on.

Self-published books such as novels, family histories, and coffee table books would represent about 10% of our turnover. We have two websites, the Lettertec bookstore and one dedicated to self-publishing.

The Lettertec bookstore helps authors to sell their book on an e-commerce site.

They leave the books with us, we package them and send them out. Then at the end of the year, we will pay the author what they are owed less a small commission.

The self-publishing website is very well-resourced and has all the help that you need as a budding author, whether you are writing fiction, poetry … family histories are strong, as are GAA histories. We provide all services, the copy-editing, the proofing, cover design.

We do e-books, paperbacks, and casebound hardcover books. We do everything under one roof and we take responsibility for it from start to finish.

What does your role involve?

Two years ago, I appointed a general manager. I was more or less doing everything up to that. Now I have more of a leadership role, and also looking for new opportunities.

We recently took over a significant business which brings an added element in terms of delivery and logistics. If you want to stay in business, you have to change and you have to grow.

What do you like most about what you do?

I like the buzz of it. We have a great group of people here, they are all very professional and specialised.

We have a good reputation and we deliver a very personal service.

We get a lot of authors coming in and sitting down and looking at the books and then going on a tour of the factory to see how a book is produced. That is fascinating.

What do you like least about it?

There’s very little I dislike but one of the things that we have to deal with are cost increases. We have massive energy bills and the cost of paper is also a big issue; it has increased by between 50% and 80% in the last few years.

Is there a lot of interest in self-publishing now?

Yes, because there are so many advantages to it, including the fact that an author retains the rights and control.

It has increased in popularity as well because there are so many genres now — people are writing self-help books, books for children, cookbooks, books about wellbeing.

People have built up knowledge over the years and self-publishing offers them an opportunity to put it down on paper.

The whole plus about self-publishing is that it allows you to to decide your process, decide the number of books you want, you keep control of everything, and it’s an enjoyable experience.

You will also get the quality as you would from the bigger publishers because we are using the same equipment.

Three desert island books

My number one book is Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use It by Oliver Burkeman. It’s a brilliant book.

People don’t realise that if you’re lucky enough to make it to 80 years of age, it’s only 4,000 weeks — this is about how to make use of them and not to be banking hours and saying ‘I’ll do that in the future’, to enjoy the moment that you’re in. It is a very wise book.

The other books I would bring that would have influenced me are The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey and Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow — I like books about self-improvement.