I’ll admit it. I’m old school. I enjoy cuddling in a chair, couch or bed with the latest page-turner I purchased from the local book store.

But as you are well aware, (or should be), times are a-changin’. Just ask Amazon.com, the world’s largest bookseller.

While Amazon.com’s warehouses are filled with loads of “real” printed books, their aim is to move to on-demand printing. Books won’t be printed until a customer orders them.

Traditional publishers continue to rally against the on-demand world. They’ve resisted Amazon.com’s request to allow print-on-demand for slower-selling titles, believing that Amazon.com will further skew book economics in their favor and wresting control of the publishing world.

In 1997 Ingram Content Group, the largest book wholesaler in the U.S., started an on-demand publisher, Lightning Source. In 2005, Amazon.com acquired the rival BookSurge (now known as CreateSpace) and began its own on-demand service.

Large publishers, like Random House, spent decades investing in traditional publishing with their own supply chains and warehouses. On-demand disrupts this business model, one based on a range of services, from editorial assistance to distribution. On-demand reduces costs and makes it difficult for publishers to charge hefty book prices.

More pressure is coming from the company On Demand Books and its Espresso Book Machine.  It prints on-demand, on-site, at several bookstores and delivers a high-quality paperback in only five minutes. HarperCollins became the first major publisher to make some of its catalog available on the machines.

As digital printing continues to rattle the publishing industry, on-demand may win out with smaller publishers embracing the technology. And those warehouses at Amazon will look much emptier in the future.

So, as the traditional book stores slowly fade, we can look forward to more cost effective ways to read the next bestseller. Although I love my Kindle Fire HD, I cannot totally trade it for a good book.