Having been STUCK with this route since 4/2000, the author is constantly learning the downfalls of the POD experience.

This article might be a touch negative for the common "beginning" writer.  For that reason I warn you, but I will also keep it short.  I would recommend that you keep an open mind as this might just give you some ideas for your own literary future.
First and foremost, I will always tell the beginning author to walk carefully but directly from step 1 to step 326.  You must keep moving your feet.  So, with that, I must personally evaluate this excercise as informative rather than negative.  I hope that you can too.
The motivation for the piece came from my own little cavort through the iWon/Google search engine.  Sometimes, you just need to take a look for your publiushed works to see if they can be found.  My own work, Shut Up by James Marry, was frequently discoverable in the first two pages by only listing the title, i.e. "Shut Up" typed in the browser line and then hit the "GO" key.  Trying that today, I went 30 pages into the mix before I surrendered that my novel would not be found in the search engine that way.  Using my name or adding "novel" to the clause as a thrid option for the engine brought things up to page two, but somewhere the world changed again while I was NOT watching.
 Shut Up used to be a pick up in the first page or two with no enhancement whatsoever.  Of course, I had been on Writer's Showcase before the iUniverse imprint was B&N imprinted.  Not that I  would attempt to blame that on my ignonimity, but they might just work at helping me be seen somehow.  It will never happen, I finally must admit, but it is an endless sore on my bum.  And again, this is absolutely NOT their fault.
Activity has assaulted my NAMEBRAND folks!  There is a new computewr program for IT associates named Shut Up.  There is a new e-magazine on the net called Shut Up.  And... this one is a major irritant to me... there is a new album on the net repetitively reviewed embossed with the Shut Up nomenclature as performed by the ageless songstress- Kelly Osborne. Sorry about the sarcasm there (as if you couldn't taste it) but... Whaaaaaaa?
Shut Up, my novel was having some trouble this past year with an agency relationship that had introduced the work at TriStar Studios, a division of Sony.  Or at least that was the story the author got told.  And the treatment and script writes took James J. Marry out of his loop for pushing the second book in the serial "Go Figure".  Readers have been good to me since the book steps along with some sales every month or so, but obviously POD is not the impact market for the work that it desires.   James must take his work to another level in publishing now.
So what happens to Go Figure.  Given the near anonimity of Shut Up, should the final rewrite be completed?  Should James go and freeze it to write new concept fiction?  Or should the writert fall in with the flock and get something new and literary picked up before he even considers wrangling with anything conceptual?  Choice three looks bettewr every minute, given the recent past experience.  But, Go Figure is near finished and the other three novels are perculating hard on the creator's head.  I think the best advice might be to tough it out and let it rest.  I think the path may have been chosen by Kelly Osbourne and believe me, I know.  That is a very sad commentary on the legs of POD in the real world.
Is James Marry a dead president campaigner?  Yeah, maybe he should be.  The name got a ton of happy thoughts, but it didn't make any money.  Yeah, the I Don't Know If It Really Went There story with TriStar could have been an inspiration, but the agency never gave me any proof of the conversations and with a year of that kind of fulfillment, I feel wise that I let that one go.  Could James Marry really be the next Philip K. Dick? Maybe.  But I think the stories need to get to a magazine level first.  So thats where i want to go next.  A magazine.  Forget about Kelly and the IT programs.  Set it aside and start querying the magazine line.  I can always credit the novel there if I ever break that nut.  Plus I can work some Non Fiction stuff in the realms dealt with by Shut Up.  Lord knows there are plenty of those directions. 
But feel assured.  If you have to know what happened to Casey Kowalski and the aftermath of the adventure on Saturn's moon Titan in 2249- the beat goes on.  Go Figure has to be completed at this point in its development.  So it will.. I just don't plan to send it around unless someone cares to rescue Shut Up or I run into a true agent in my next NYC pub stop.  I've got to write and I'm good at it.  I ought to get paid for it too.