Andrew Roskill, CEO, BiblioLabs
October 17, 2012
The management team of BiblioLabs didn’t exactly just wake up one day with an idea. It was more of an evolution. Although the founders all had different backgrounds and skill sets, they were originally brought together by a common desire to see print-on-demand (POD) publishing become mainstream. The POD company they founded in 2000 was aptly named BookSurge. Notably, many of the challenges with POD publishing were similar in nature to the ones faced by BiblioLabs in that they required an automated technology solution to help bring operational efficiencies to an age-old industry.
After struggling for many years to achieve market acceptance by publishers, distributors and retailers, they reached a major milestone when BookSurge was acquired by Amazon.com in 2005 to broaden its catalog of offerings. POD and web retailing go hand in hand because neither have limited shelf space, yet by the same token, neither want to carry inventory. The technology was successfully integrated by Amazon, who now sells millions of books to customers all over the world through Amazon print-on-demand.
With BiblioLabs, the original founders are continuing to work toward a seamless global book experience. Whether localized print-on-demand, eBooks or mobile app reading — the world of books is an exciting place to create new business models.
In 2012, BiblioLabs was recognized by Inc. magazine as the 7th fastest growing media company in the United States.
