Amazon has announced that it will only sell print-on-demand books printed by its own print-on-demand service BookSurge.

The print-on-demand book business has thrived in the last few years as players such as Lulu, Blurb and others have catered to publishers looking to reduce overhead on inventory. It will be very difficult for anyone to compete with Amazon in the print-on-demand space.

The decision may also cause book prices to rise with the Wall Street Journal reporting that Amazon BookSurge prices are higher than other print-on-demand providers.