Amazon buys HP digital presses

AMAZON IS betting that authors and publishers will shift to on-demand book publishing and has splashed out on a number of HP digital printing presses.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the HP Indigo presses will sit at its distribution centres around the US and when a punter or distributor wants a book, Amazon will print it off for them.

The new printers will offer better quality and higher capacity than the company's previous on-demand printing setup.

It will mean that Amazon can increase the number of available titles its customers can purchase, while offering publishers higher quality colour printing options.

The printers can handle runs of about 5,000, although if you are going to order that many you might as well print them in a more traditional manner. µ