The Shackles of POD

What everyone in publishing knows now is print-on-demand is the method noir of the vanity press: a business model. This article in Publisher's Weekly decries the small publisher being buried by the hordes of vanity crap.

"In fact, when it comes to practical nonfiction, the information contained in POD books may be just as suspect as that found on some Internet sites."

It's virtually impossible to climb out of this muck. Serious information in nonfiction will not be taken seriously if it's between the covers of a POD book. I've felt that for quite sometime. It's hard enough to convince agents what my first book now expanded with reams of scientific research and reporting even is. Either they don't know what it is, or do but expect me to be Jared Diamond . There is no middle ground these days. When a St. Martin's book is released and not even shipped to chain stores there isn't a whole lot to look forward to even if you do get through, so the idea that an amateur will get a vanity novel in is a joke.