In comparison with the progress made by electronic platforms and hardware companies, a technology like POD is still very much in the background. Nevertheless, some firms in the sector have begun to back this new modality. In October 2010, the third annual “On Demand Russia” exhibition was held in Moscow and the event enabled dozens of companies – particularly equipment manufacturers and software firms – to exhibit their products and services. Leonid Shakhmundes, the director of the American Technology Print Center – one of the organizing bodies – had this to say:

Providers from the printing world need on-going education and forums like this one to better understand what options are available and how they can use them successfully in their businesses.[1]

The present POD network has enabled the emergence of self-publishing portals such as Samizdal, Book4Baby and Book4Family, all of which belong to Webov and Knigin, an independent digital publishing house that targets the niche market of personalized publications. Under the slogan “modern technology in the service of literature”, Samizdal offers authors the possibility to publish and distribute their books through the Web, in print on demand format, and it also carries out design, proofreading and image editing work. Book4Baby, for its part, brings together educational and child development titles. Lastly, Book4Family is oriented towards the market for gift books and commemorative works.

In addition to the B2C model characteristic of the self-publishing sites, we also find B2B businesses, that is to say, portals that offer POD services to other companies, more specifically to publishers. One relevant example is Kniga Po Trebovaniyu (On Demand Book), which works for over 200 Russian publishing houses. Kniga Po Trebovaniyu’s books are printed to order and can be obtained at local stores like Ozon and Biblion but also in international bookstores like Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Blackwell and Adlibris. Kniga Po Trebovaniyu is about to install dozens of POD terminals in different cities in Russia – an initiative that will enable readers from distant locations to access a backlist of 300,000 works in 50 languages.[2] Yevgeniy Khata, the company director, acknowledges that digital printing currently has a secondary presence in the Russian book sector, but points out that responsibility for this lag should perhaps be borne more by the publishing houses than by technology companies. [3]