I lurk at several writing forums. I enjoy reading about the struggle to publish. The forums have been quiet all this year. There hasn’t been much happening. Recently, a new writer started posting over at the AR BBS. I thought that it was a joke, because has some sort of writing impediment. It is a analog of a stutter that makes his sentences seem like they are badly translated from another language. Today he listed a book he published, and googling it, I found a catalog listing with a page from the book. It is self published at Authorhouse. I guess Authorhouse is a vanity press or POD publisher. The text is badly written in a way that is remarkable. It is not readable, but it is fascinating, like watching a multi-car pileup on television. You wince and moan and try to look away, but you can’t.

The book is 120 pages and it is listed at Barnes and Noble and Amazon. This is an extreme case, but you can certainly find fault in companies like Authorhouse when they take money from people and then publish something like this. This gives POD a very bad name.