The partnership, called gps for Global Print Solutions, provides publishers with a one-stop solution for printing around the globe. "There's one order, one invoice, and one file available globally for local production, so publishers anywhere in the world can work with their local partner and get the same guaranteed service, no matter the final destination of the book," said Edwards Brothers president and CEO John Edwards.

In an interview with PrintWeek, Edwards added he first began discussions about a partnership - initially with just CPI - nearly a decade ago. "We were trying to figure out ways to do a simultaneous print because we could see a lot of our clients were making books on one side of the ocean and shipping them to the other for part of the run," he explained. But that was when digital was just coming along and it just didn't work then - we were working with plates and presses and the make-ready was too high."

Edwards said now both that both companies had digital and offset, it makes a lot more sense. "It really wasn't a response to consolidation in this market," he stressed. "This was more about taking a customer-focused approach and figuring out where they were going and what they would need."

The real advantage of gps, the companies said, is that publishers will still be dealing with the current local supplier, who remain the sales and service contact for the partnership. Orders will be passed from that supplier for production and distribution around the globe and publishers will get a single invoice from their local vendor, eliminating time-consuming purchasing processes with unknown overseas printers.

Edwards indicated it was CPI, which will service Europe and Africa in the new partnership, that brought in Griffin to handle Australia and Singapore-based Markono for Asia. "They're already an international business in that a lot of their customers come from outside the UK." he said. "Both CPI and our company are heavily into the higher ed space and so once we put together the idea for the partnership, it just made a lot of sense because the price points are higher and runs are lower."

In many ways, gps puts Edwards Brothers and their partners in the same space as major players such as RR Donnelley, which recently signed a deal with HarperCollins for global print-on-demand and distribution. But Edwards said this really isn't about trying to compete with major international groups, adding, "I think there's room for everybody and remember we are not in the traditional retail book space."

Edwards Brothers employs 750 people and, in addition to its Ann Arbor headquarters, operates two production plants in Lillington, NC as well as nine on-site and remote digital printing operations in the US, Canada, and the UK. "We're already a digital printer and we have web presses," Edwards said. "The big thing for us is we're doing a lot of digital that's toner based, but that will need to be upgraded and that will probably take place in the next year or two."

CPI's Dino Bishop said that the gps customer launch at the UK's London Book Fair earlier this year had proved a hit with clients such as Random House, John Blake Publishing and Thomas Telford Publishers and many were already using it and "finding it useful".

He added that while he couldn't reveal any further information on potential partners in other geographies, "you'd be surprised if we just stayed the same".

As for the future of higher education book printing in the age of e-books, Edwards noted a recent study that found today's college student like to read online, but prefer to study with an actual book.

"There's also concerns about piracy," with e-college text books," he added, noting the big trend he's seeing is university professors looking to custom build text-books for each semester by combining older content with new papers tailored for that class and that year.