BookSurge is a quiet little outfit that has made a lot of noise – some of it strident – since its modest beginnings as a print on demand press. An article by Jim Milliot in Publishers Weekly indicates that BookSurge’s voice will be absorbed into the roar of a self-publication factory. Both are owned by Amazon.

Amazon’s acquisition of BookSurge a few years ago prompted me to speculate on just what the book retail giant could want with a little POD company. In a guest editorial in Publishers Weekly, I wrote, “It’s hard to say for sure what is behind amazon.com’s acquisition of BookSurge, the on-demand book-printer. But any move the Nine Gazillion Pound Gorilla makes is worthy of serious consideration. Indeed, the implications of the deal, especially combined with amazon’s purchase of e-book company MobiPocket, are profound.”

In time our questions were answered when Amazon began leaning on publishers to shift their print on demand business to BookSurge, occasioning a blog (The Nine Gazillion Pound Gorilla Bares Its Fangs) describing the alarm that many publishers felt at the prospect of being pressured to give up their relationship with BookSurge’s competitors.

The glare of publicity (plus an antitrust lawsuit by a company called BookLocker that remains pending as of October) seems to have checked BookSurge’s conquistadorial ambitions. And now the firm is to be integrated into CreateSpace, an Amazon division providing tools to self-publishers. “The move will make CreateSpace the single platform for all BookSurge and CreateSpace authors and publishers,” writes Milliot, who goes on to cite CreateSpace’s website: “During the coming months we will be transitioning all BookSurge accounts to CreateSpace, after which the BookSurge brand will be retired.”

A lot of e-ink has been spilled of late about self-publication, which some of us prefer to call vanity (see You Got That Right, Ecclesiastes) and we are going to see a lot more as a clash of vanity titans shapes up, with Author Solutions (AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Trafford, Xlibris, Inkubook etc.) in one corner and CreateSpace in the other. And if you cast your eyes on the ringside seat behind CreateSpace you’ll see our quiet little friend BookSurge.

Richard Curtis