now was started by two senior publishing executives to provide the research community with a partnership for publishing. International in structure, the company is ideally placed to bring a new era to academic publishing, which values editors and authors, deploys a liberal and fair copyright policy, and provides librarians with value for money. The primary mission of now is to improve scholarly communication, speed the flow of information, and reward the scientist. The company uses modern web-based marketing and manufacturing techniques to minimize costs. Using targeted marketing and print-on-demand publishing technologies now is able to significantly compensate authors and editors for their efforts, and pass on cost-savings to librarians.