Founded only three years ago by director Marguerite Renaud, the company has turned a profit every year since and has seen its turnover increased year by year substantially.
It offers a full publishing service from cover design through to illustration, printing and finishing and has built up a reputation for producing good quality books with innovative features for its clients, while taking on out-sourced finishing for other printers and publishing houses.
To keep ahead of the competition, the digital printer has just installed a new Horizon BQ270 Perfect Binder and HT 30 Robotic Trimmer through AM International, a move that will speed up production enormously, says Marguerite.
She says the purchase is in line with their strategy to expand by using technology rather than increasing staff numbers and keeping their overheads down.
The two pieces of equipment mean that what would previously have taken 16 hours, will now only take three.
"We've been using a hand guillotine and did the creasing literally by hand as well, so these two machines are going to increase our productivity hugely and enable us to produce even better quality books because of the automation they offer," she says.
First Edition handles smaller runs typically between 20 and 50 books at a time ranging from personal memoirs to art books, club histories and story books.
While self-publishing has always been popular, modern digital equipment has made it more accessible and economic for people who want to do it, Marguerite says.
"We offer a lot of innovative features like fold-out family trees, for instance and we're expanding our operation to include accompanying audio CD's."
