Maybe because I’ve come across another of their imprints before, I knew more or less the score on this one. All I can say is that people need to research publishers before they go with them. What I will also say is this. I was originally tempted to go with them because a) I didn’t really expect money from the project I was doing, so not having royalties from them wasn’t an issue b) I have no intention of pursuing an academic career from this. If you are happy not to receive royalties and you have no interest in using the services of this group for any sort of career move or advancement, I can’t see a problem. So it really also depends on what you want from this German service. If it’s simply (and I mean only) to see your name up there as the author of a book, but you want nothing more, I don’t see the problem. I had (and have) no interest either in self-publishing or in trying to market the thesis to a “proper” academic press.
In the end, I declined to go with them. This was because on reflection, I think that if my Ph.D. is reworked (and this would be when I have enough time, which I don’t at present) it “might” be more attractive to a real academic press, which I do agree is preferable. The trick there is to make it more attractive, and that’s not easy, and to do that does require some work. I know that normally, and without reworking, Ph.D.s are not that attractive to scholarly presses, since they are created for somewhat different purposes and audiences.
My first thought was to avoid all that hassle and extra work, which is why I entertained the thought of going with VDM for a while.
