Publish-On-Demand Companies Merging

[Yeratel]

There's an article in the Sept. 7 Wall Street Journal about some consolidation taking place in the self-publishing industry that I thought might be of interest to those who have participated in threads here about e-publishing and P.O.D.
One of the larger self-publishers, Author Solutions, Inc., is acquiring rival iUniverse, Inc. to create a much larger P.O.D. company to compete with rivals Amazon.com and Lulu.com. A spokesman for AuthorHouse, parent company of Author Solutions, says that the merger is a good move which combines their strength in the service side of the business, like layout and marketing, with the broader set of editorial services offered by iUniverse.
According to the article, self-publishing is a $200 million a year industry, catering to the "growing number of writers who have failed to interest an established publisher in their work."

[Cathy Clamp]

Sigh... I'd like to think they'll both be better for the merger. But I fear they'll simply take the easy path, which will bring the half-way decent iUniverse down to AuthorHouse's level. And all to the detriment of the author. 

[RMatthewWare]

"growing number of writers who have failed to interest an established publisher in their work."

If you have to pay someone to publish your work you're doing it wrong.  People are supposed to pay you, not the other way around.  The only way I'd go POD is if I simply wanted to have my books in a professional format and had no desire to see them published.

[Yeratel]

"growing number of writers who have failed to interest an established publisher in their work."

If you have to pay someone to publish your work you're doing it wrong.  People are supposed to pay you, not the other way around.  The only way I'd go POD is if I simply wanted to have my books in a professional format and had no desire to see them published.

For the most part that's true. Self-publishing is really just paying a printer to put your stuff in a hard copy format. It works fine for things that would NEVER be sold commercially, like family histories and geneology, religious and political screeds, stuff like that.