First there were independent films, then independent rock bands, now independent publishing.

That’s the view of Keith Ogorek, the senior vice president of marketing for Author Solutions of Bloomington, Ind., the holding company of Xlibris, a publish-on-demand business.

“Print on demand is really about printing technology,” Ogorek said. “What we are really talking about is the independent revolution that took place in film and music is now taking place in publishing.”

Advances in digital printing has made it economical to print a single copy of a book at a time. Companies such as Xlibris have sprung up to edit, format the book for ebook readers, secure copyright registration, design covers, publicize, market and distribute books for authors, for a price.

Ogorek said fees charged authors can range from as little as $500 to as much as $1,500 depending on what services are desired.

“It’s just technology,” said Ogorek. “The real thing is the author doesn’t have to wait any longer. An author can go to his mailbox and pull out a book instead of a dozen rejection letters.”

Ogorek said Xlibris publishes 2,200 titles a month on every topic except material it deems slanderous, libelous, hate speech or pornography.

“The most popular genre is nonfiction books and the second is children’s books,” said Ogorek. “The reality is you can do whatever you want.”

Ogorek said in Xlibris’ history it’s published 140,000 authors and 175,000 titles.

“We have authors all the time that have been picked up by traditional publishers,” he said.

Not bad for a company that doesn’t own its own printing press and uses a staff of 250 freelance editors to prepare its manuscripts.

If somebody wanted a copy of Jody Brown’s book, as either an ebook or a traditional bound volume, it’s easy to get, said Suzi Baer, business development manager at the Barnes & Noble store, 100 Cranberry Square Drive in Cranberry Township.

A publish-on-demand book on order would take three to seven days to arrive, the same as a standard published book, Baer said.

Downloading Brown’s book to Barnes & Noble’s Nook would be even faster.

So which version gets sold the most?

“That’s a hard question to answer. Obviously we have customers that want a physical book, and we have readers that want it on ebook,” Baer said.