Amazon Acquires Publisher BookSurge For On-Demand Printing

"Paper back: On Tuesday, Amazon.com (nasdaq: AMZN - news - people ) announced it had acquired BookSurge, a publishing company that will print books when ordered, rather than using warehouses stocked with titles. Charleston, S.C.-based BookSurge maintains a catalog with thousands of titles ready for print, all available for sale on Amazon. 'Print-on-demand has changed the economics of small-quantity printing, making it possible for books with low and uncertain demand to be profitably produced,' explained Greg Greely, Amazon's vice president of media products. The exact terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Greely went on to explain that BookSurge would make it possible to print books for specific audiences, such as foreign-language titles and specialized art books, rather than for the general public."

[Forbes.com]