NEW YORK, NY/AMSTERDAM—While many printed publications are going digital, sometimes the reverse can happen.

Issuu, a global digital publishing platform with offices in New York City and Copenhagen, has teamed up with Peecho, a service allowing digital content to be sold as a physical product, to allow publishers to print on demand through a global network of print facilities.



Issuu has added a Peecho Cloud Print Button to enable Issuu users to order "low-cost" copies of their content in the form of magazines, glossy paperbacks and hardcover books. "By analyzing the specifications of any digital document in real-time, it automatically calculates the accurate, lowest price for a printed version, and displays the price comparisons," reads a release.

In return, Issuu takes a "very, very small margin from each order", said the company.

Meanwhile, a story on TechCrunch.com explains Peecho, based in Amsterdam, makes an average margin of 20 percent on every order, depending on the product.

The number of printers in the cloud network "increases constantly, and opening in new areas is dictated by the amount of print requests from that area," noted the company. Peecho currently looks to its partner networks of manufacturers including HP and Xerox to select the best printers in a region, but it's expected that any printers can join in the future.

“Due to the diverse nature of Issuu’s publications, transforming our pixels into high quality print has been really complicated – until now. The Peecho Cloud Print button does an excellent job by offering a service that used to be impossible,” said Mik Strøyberg, director of consumer engagement at Issuu.

Issuu said it is the fastest growing digital publishing platform in the world with more than 52 million monthly visitors and more than 210,000 publications added each month.

“Most online content is not print ready because there is a bewildering range of digital publishing file formats, and print facilities all require their own specific values for size, spine, cut marks, margins and more,” said Martijn Groot, chief executive officer and co-founder of Peecho. “This is the reason that there are plenty of sites that let you print a magazine or book on demand, but most services only print specific product sizes via a single print facility. A lot of titles are never published in print because the volume isn’t large enough. Peecho aims to be the long tail of print publishing: professional printing for the masses.”

This isn't an entirely new concept; HP Magcloud service has also been around for some time.