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Nor have the companies' corporate links brought writers any closer to success. Random House has picked up just three to five titles for traditional publishing since it became associated with Xlibris, Mr. Feldcamp said. Of iUniverse's 10,000 titles, six are now are available on Barnes & Noble shelves. "Those titles are meant to showcase iUniverse, not to provide their authors the hope that their work will be distributed in Barnes & Noble bookstores," said Steve Riggio, the company's chief executive officer.

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Unless authors make extraordinary promotional efforts on their own, most print-on-demand titles typically sell just a few hundred copies. "A big seller for us is anywhere between 1,000 to 5,000 copies," said Kim Hawley, president of iUniverse.

When it comes to paying authors for books sold, most print-on-demand companies follow the model of traditional publishers: writers receive a percentage of sales as a royalty. However, with printing on demand, writers pay advance costs to have their books created. And print-on-demand companies never pay advances for books.

Once the book is created, the hard work of selling it begins. Given that the writing quality of print-on-demand titles can range from the sublime to the ridiculous, few newspapers review them, and not many more than a handful of bookstores stock any of them, although the I.S.B.N. allows a title to be ordered through a store's database.

The New York Times does not review print-on-demand titles, as the newspaper's policy is to review books that are widely available only in general interest bookstores, said Catherine Mathis, vice president for corporate communications. The Los Angeles Times does not have a policy against reviewing print-on-demand books but has not reviewed any.

"Without question the scales are tilted in favor of traditional publishers," said Steve Wasserman, book editor of The Los Angeles Times. "P.O.D. titles do not have the discriminating filter of editors and publishers. Until a publisher develops a reputation for literary excellence, one greets their books with healthy skepticism."

Getting reviews from the trade press is no easier. "We started to review P.O.D. books, but we don't want to get inundated with them," said Jim Milliot, news editor for Publishers' Weekly. "There's still a standard of quality that must be met."

Marketing the print-on-demand book is up to the author, which is one reason why most do not sell.

"The P.O.D. books that succeed are not the best books," said Mr. Feldcamp of Xlibris. "They're the ones that have been pushed most successfully by their authors."

As an experienced newspaper columnist, Ms. Notaro knew that traditional marketing techniques would get her nowhere. She did not bother to send her book, a collection of humorous essays called "The Idiot Girls' Action Adventure Club," to newspapers to be reviewed.

"I knew how the process worked," she said. "My book would fall to the bottom of the pile."

She rejected iUniverse's stock covers and designed one of her own. Trading on her name recognition in Phoenix, Ms. Notaro organized readings at libraries, schools and women's groups, also handing out fliers telling people to order her book at Amazon.com. Using a now-defunct Amazon.com marketing program, she created a "sponsored link" on the Web site. A literary agent noticed it, contacted her and eventually sold her book to Villard, one of the publishers that had originally rejected it. As a paperback from a mainstream publisher, it made the New York Times best-seller list for several weeks last summer.

Mr. Vitale sent 8,000 e-mail messages asking people to buy his book, "Spiritual Marketing: A Proven Five-Step Formula for Easily Creating Wealth from the Inside Out," from Amazon.com on one of two specified days last June; in return he offered them access to marketing articles posted at his Web site that normally were not available without a fee. He also recommended his own book on an Amazon.com page featuring a competitor's work.

Mr. Vitale's guerrilla marketing tactics paid off. He sold 5,000 copies on his two requested days, plus an additional 2,500 to date. "I didn't care about getting reviews," he said. "I was easily able to drive people to Amazon.com, and by becoming the best-selling book for two days, I got a lot of attention."

Too often, writers who use print-on-demand services do not put enough energy or money into their efforts, expecting that somehow their work will become known. "People who flock to print on demand are very frequently planning to fail," said Richard Galli, a writer. His first book, "Rescuing Jeffrey," was bought by an established publisher. For his next book, a novel, Mr. Galli wanted to keep his ownership rights and all the profits, so he chose to use a vanity press and print thousands of copies at once.

"New writers don't want to invest, or can't afford to invest, in printing a couple of thousand copies, so they try to find a way to print 50 or 500,'' he said. "They've just built failure into their model. You may not get many reviews when you self-publish, but what's the point of publishing at all if you're not going to compete?"

With the availability of print-on-demand services, the issue is no longer whether one can get a book in print but only whether anyone will notice. "Each year, it gets easier to get published, but harder to get read," said Mr. Milliot of Publishers Weekly. "P.O.D. may be a good inexpensive way to realize your dream. But you're not going to get on the New York Times best-seller list."