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Beware of POD publishers such as Iuniverse and Xlibris. These companies have their place for those who are not prepared to do their own page layout or arrange their own cover design, but they do not provide true self-publishing. Xlibris, for example, "publishes" your book for you in one of several packages, which involve turning your manuscript into a digital file and having Lightning Source or another printer produce it on demand. They then pay you a "royalty" of 10% for bookstore sales (don't expect many of these) or 25% off a slightly lower selling price for direct sales. They even oblige you to buy any copies you want of your own book from them at a 40% discount off the bookstore retail price, which they set at $21.99 for a 200 -299 page book. Thus, you are paying no less for copies of the book than a bookstore does--a whopping $13.19 for a book that would cost you under $5 direct from Lightning Source (or Fidlar Doubleday, Berryville, etc). Since many sales of Xlibris books are likely to be made by the author, it is not difficult to see where the company makes a lot of its money--money that should be yours. Xlibris is not a scam--they are up-front about what they do, but they represent a poor deal for the knowledgeable self-publisher.
Iuniverse also offers a deal similar in its essentials to Xlibris. With Xlibris you retain the rights to your work. At Iuniverse you grant these to the company on an non-exclusive basis. This means that you can pursue other publishing arrangements, but no traditional publisher is going to be interested in sharing the rights, so you would have to disentangle yourself from Iuniverse first. To be fair, this seems pretty easy to do, with thirty days notice. Iuniverse pays you a royalty of 20% on each book sold, minus any shipping charges. Royalties are calculated on the price at which Iuniverse sells the book, likely to be under half the cover price. So you are doing all the marketing and selling for a mere 10% or so of the cover price. If you want to buy copies of your own book, your discount is 20% on quantities below 10 books, rising to 35% for over 100. So, if your book is priced at $14.95 (they set the price, not you), 100 copies will cost you $9.72 each, which is probably more than twice what it would have cost you from a real POD printer. Of course, there are no royalties on books you buy yourself.
If you want to go with a publishing services company, you should investigate writerscollective.com. When you join, they offer a lot of useful help in setting up your manuscript, cover design templates, ISBN, entry into databases etc. for a flat (modest) membership fee. They link to Fidlar Doubleday for a printing quotation, either POD or offset, and prices are competitive. Then it's up to you to sell your books and keep all the proceeds. They have a distribution arrangement with a sister company called Indybooks, a relative newcomer. Writers Collective offers some advantages to those who do not want to get involved in PDF creation etc. and provides a far more equitable arrangement than royalty based competitors. In addition, it saves you the money for your ISBNs. This is also the downside. Without your own ISBN, you will not be taken so seriously as a publisher.
Remember, many reviewers associate books that bear the imprint of Iuniverse, Xlibris or other publishing services companies with poor work from sad people who should not be published. This is hard luck on those of whom this is not true. Similarly, bookstores are unlikely to stock books with these imprints. Barnes & Noble actually has a stake in Iuniverse and advertises their services in their stores, but you are not likely to find many Iuniverse titles on their shelves. With admirable candor, X-Libris admits on its website that "Bookstores do not routinely stock Xlibris books."
One final important thing to consider is that most print-on-demand publishers have a one-size-fits-all contract, which usually involves giving away rights that you should really keep (translation, movie, serial, etc.) You will regret this, if your book becomes a success. This may also limit your chances of ever selling and profiting from these rights, as the publisher may not be well qualified or motivated to market them.
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