Darkling Media

PDF stands for Portable Document Format. Adobe Acrobat Reader is the primary software for reading this type of file, and it's free. It comes bundled with many different things these days, but if you don't have it already it's available for most any platform from Adobe's website. Newer versions can be a bit to download, especially if you're using a dial-up connection. There are other programs out there, many of them for free, if you're feeling adventurous.

POD stands for Print On Demand. This means that each book is printed and shipped as it is requested rather than having a warehouse full of product waiting for someone to buy it, or not. It means less wasted paper, since only the number of books sold are actually produced.

As stated above, virtually no waste. Each book is printed as requested, and shipped directly to the customer.
It means far less time from completed manuscript to marketplace, since there's no big company that has to make group decisions about acceptance, revisions, production, distribution, and all the other things that go into traditional publishing.
It means greater creative control. Have you seen movies in the theater, and a year later there's a *Director's Cut* version on the shelves? With Print On Demand publishing, you get to see the version the artist intended you to see originally. There's no editorial group tinkering with a work to make it more mainstream, just so they can sell more.
And it can mean less expensive books. Some writers like POD because they can make a better share of the profits, which only makes sense since they often do the lion's share of the promotion and marketing by themselves even with traditional publishers. I have a day job that keeps a roof over my head, so I prefer to set my profit at about the same level as I'd make with a big publisher, but without the middle men. This can mean several dollars less per book to the reader.

Again, it's better for the environment, since there are never any excess books that get disposed of or destroyed.
It means you get to see a work the way the artist intended.
It means you get to read books that might never have seen the light of day otherwise. Does this mean that pretty much anybody can publish anything they want? Yes, it does. So, what assurance do you have of quality control? Actually, about the same as you'd have with any of the big places when buying work from a little known author. If you see something on Lulu.com that catches your eye, there's usually going to be a free preview, just like Amazon. In fact there may be more preview available, since authors decide how much you need to read to get a good feel for their work instead of an arbitrary number of pages. If there isn't a preview, many times you can follow the links to the author's website (like this one) and email them directly with questions. That's not something you can do while standing in a brick and mortar store.

Most manufacturers will replace a product that's defective. Can you send it back if it turns out you don't like it? No, unfortunately there's no warehousing of extra books since each is produced as it is requested, so you can't return a book you didn't like. Let's take a look at it from another angle, though. Let's say I decide to buy a book from Amazon. First, it's going to cost me thirty to fifty percent more than it would to go direct to the print on demand publisher. Can I return it for any reason? Sure, if it's unopened, in good condition, and within thirty days. And I'm going to pay shipping both ways. Not everybody reads the return policies before they buy, even though they should - no matter what or where it is.
It is difficult to get your money back when buying POD books. That's one more reason I try to keep the cost down to encourage people to take the chance on something new and different. I can't promise anything, but if you buy one of my books, read it, and really just hate the thing, e-mail me and we'll talk. If it's in good shape I might buy it back from you to use as a promotional copy.

You heard correctly. It's at Independentbook.com and it's free. Since this is my first book, I decided I should test the water. So, I put it up for free to see how it would be received. So far, people seem to like it. You can still go there and get the whole thing free if you have doubts, but you'll have to read it from the computer screen or spend about twice as much to print it out as it costs to buy a hard copy from Lulu. Unless you have unlimited use of the printer at work. The second and third books are available in electronic format at Lulu and cost significantly less than the print version, since there's no printing and shipping.
Update: Darkling is now availabe Free at Lulu as well.