Print On Demand 

As a general rule of thumb, if there is any sort of promise to do a print run, and the publisher asks for money up front, then it's a good bet that it's a Vanity Publisher. With the advent of Print On Demand (POD) publishers, there is no need to outlay large sums of money to get your work published. Most POD companies ask for a few hundred up front to cover the cost of printing your book, but this normally includes some services. What these services are depend on how much they ask. The minimum I have seen is $199 for a printing package. This included:

• 1 free copy of my book
• 1 choice of book format
• 2 customizable covers
• Complete ownership of rights
• Ability to set my own Retail Price
• A marketing toolkit
• A free webpage
• Local radio contact list

As you can see, it's not a great deal to be honest, but then it is the cheapets option I could find. This company did offer another 4 packages that went from $399, $699, $999, and $1099. The final one is probably the most expensive I have seen, but it did offer a lot more of a service:

• 5 free copies of my book
• 2 choices of book format
• 25 customizable covers
• The option of full colour printing
• Complete ownership of rights
• Ability to set my own Retail Price
• A marketing toolkit
• A free webpage
• Local radio contact list
• Some author discounts
• A personal representative
• Manuscript evaluation
• Ability to set my own Royalty
• Price embedded barcode
• Assigned ISBN
• Their own bookstore listing, with a discount
• Worldwide distribution
• Marketing coach
• Listing in Book-in-Print

Wow, that looks like so much more, of course it's a lot more expensive. Well, let's look at it in a little more detail.

Local Radio Contact List
Again, this wouldn't be too hard to find yourself, so this isn't worth a lot.

Author Discounts
As these are discounts off their own products, it's not exactly the sort of thing to set your heart racing.

A Personal Representative
This might be worthwhile, this person is supposed to be able to give you advice regarding publishing your work.

Manuscript Evaluation
Now this is worthwhile, as you are going to need this one way or another. But saying that, there are plenty of small to medium sized companies that offer this service at a reasonale rate.

Ability to Set Royalty
This one is a bit pointless. If you set a retail price, then your royalty will be calculated automatically.

Price Embedded Barcode
This is a nice to have, and it does add a professional look to your book. Saying that it isn't really necessary.

Assigned ISBN
This is the big one, although most POD companies offer this as standard. You can do this yourself if you want.

Their Own Bookstore Listing
Another pointless one. I imagine they are very few buyers of books that visit their bookstore.

Worldwide Distribution & Listing in Books-in-Print
The first would include the second, again this is something that you could do yourself. But it might be a service that's worthwhile paying for.

Marketing Coach
This could be a very useful service, but only if it's tailored to your book. If it's a general set of advice then you can probably pick up what to do on plenty of Internet sources, including this one :-)