According to a New York Times article published on January 28, 2009, Xlibris, along with AuthorHouse, Wordclay, and iUniverse, were all owned and operated by a single company, Author Solutions Inc.  Author Solutions is capitalized by Bertram Capital Management, and has now bought Inkubook and Trafford as well.  They seem intent on buying up as many POD publishers as they can.  By buying up market share, they are already the biggest publisher "in town."  Unfortunately, supporting a mega giant like this requires that companies use "economies of scale" to do the work, which basically means the publishing is outsourced to the Philippines, India, and other third world nations.

How this will turn out remains to be seen. In the meantime, although these companies are now all under one roof, they retain their separate websites and their individual "looks."

Although I haven't finished my investigation, at this time, it doesn't look like the economies of scale offered by Author Solutions have done anything to reduce the costs of publishing through these companies, or to provide better access to bookstores, or to better enable writers to reach their reading public.  What it has no doubt done, however, is provide higher profits to the investors in Bertram Capital Management.