There's a blurb in the news about a woman who got fired for working on her novel at work, on the company PC, while she was on the clock: http://www.kcci.com/news/14918070/detail.html  Since she was fired "for cause", she was denied unemployment benefits, too. A lesson for all you aspiring novelists with day jobs - until your blockbuster gets published and the royalty checks exceed your advance, keep your masterpiece away from the company PC, and do your writing at home nights and weekends.

There's an article in the Sept. 7 Wall Street Journal about some consolidation taking place in the self-publishing industry that I thought might be of interest to those who have participated in threads here about e-publishing and P.O.D.
One of the larger self-publishers, Author Solutions, Inc., is acquiring rival iUniverse, Inc. to create a much larger P.O.D. company to compete with rivals Amazon.com and Lulu.com. A spokesman for AuthorHouse, parent company of Author Solutions, says that the merger is a good move which combines their strength in the service side of the business, like layout and marketing, with the broader set of editorial services offered by iUniverse.
According to the article, self-publishing is a $200 million a year industry, catering to the "growing number of writers who have failed to interest an established publisher in their work."