Xlibris


Xlibris is a self-publishing and on-demand printing services provider, founded in 1997 and based in Bloomington, Indiana. In 2000, The New York Times stated it to be the foremost on-demand publisher. The current chief executive is Andrew Philips, who was formerly the president of Penguin Books.

Overview

Xlibris is a printing and distribution service that produces hardback and paperback books. It also publishes e-books in several formats. The company was acquired by the self-publishing company Author Solutions, Inc., on January 8, 2009. Prior to that, 49% of the company had been owned by Random House.
It is "non-selective" in accepting manuscripts, Beginning in 2000, the company expanded its operations globally, opening full-service offices in Europe and Japan.
In 2008, Xlibris was stated to have 20,000 titles in print, by more than 18,000 authors. The name is a derivation of the Latin term , which means "from the library of".

Reception

In a New York Times article, D.T. Max stated that the quality of Xlibris's books was better than its competitors in the self-publishing industry, but criticized the organization of the site, where books were only indexed by an alphabetical listing by title with bare descriptions of the plot and theme. He ultimately phoned a company executive for a recommendation and to place an order.
Roland LaPlante, writing in Harper's Magazine, noted in 2001 that Xlibris's predicted future output of 100,000 titles a year would equal the number of all books published in the United States in 1999, and worried these "mostly dubious" works would "affect American publishing in every worst way and obliterate what remains of a genuine book culture."