Vanity press

A vanity press or vanity publisher is a printer who acts like a publisher that charges writers a fee in return for publishing their books. They are so called because the customer can then tell others they have published a book. These companies often call themselves subsidy publishers, because the author subsidizes (pays for) the publication. Instead of pursuing a specific genre of writing or publishing philosophy, a vanity press will agree to print and bind any author's work for some fee. They may offer a print on demand service. Because vanities often do not take the same commercial risks as conventional publishers, such as offering an advance or royalties, they are not considered to confer the same recognition to a published author. Vanity presses do not, for example, pursue marketing and promotion strategies in order to increase sales (as conventional publishers do), nor do they, in general, offer any editorial capacity. However, they do guarantee a much greater independence from the mainstream publishing industry.

Contents

1 Differences with traditional publishers 2 Business model 3 Alternatives to vanity publishing 4 Libraries 5 History 6 Vanity Presses in Fiction 7 Some vanity presses 8 See also 9 External links

Differences with traditional publishers

The term “vanity press” is generally derogatory, and is often used to imply that an author using such a service is only publishing out of vanity, and that his or her work could not be commercially successful. Many vanity presses are in fact scams, including some identified at <http://www.sfwa.org/Beware/>. In general any publisher that expects the author to pay a large fee upfront, while promising or hinting at large amounts of fame and fortune for the author is probably a scam, and certainly should be approached warily.

On the other hand, some companies basically offer printing and perhaps limited distribution for a fee. This fee may be a fixed up-front fee, a per-copy fee, or a combination. Such companies will, if honest, explain what they do and do not offer, and how their service differs from that of a traditional commercial publisher. Such services can be a viable way for an author to self-publish without needing to own printing equipment. This is particularly attractive to an author of a work with a limited, specialized appeal; or to the author who intends to promote his work personally. It may also attract works of advocacy for unusually or non-mainstream views, that may not be attractive to a traditional publisher.

A publisher traditionally assumes the risk of publication and production costs, selects the works to be published, edits the author’s text, and provides for marketing and distribution. In the modern world the publisher also provides the ISBN and satisfies whatever legal deposit and copyright registration formalities are required. Such a publisher normally pays the author a fee, called an advance , for the right to publish the author’s work; and further payments, called royalties, based on the sales of the work.

A vanity publisher typically fails to provide any useful editing service, and is not selective, allowing anyone to "publish" who will pay the fee. This lack of selectivity is the main reason for the low esteem in which most of the literary world holds vanity publishers. Many vanity publishers charge excessive fees, which are never likely to be recouped from sales of the books involved. Vanity publishers typically do little or no effective marketing. Formerly they did little or no distribution. Now vanity publishers may offer web-based sales, or make a book available to be ordered via online booksellers, but do no marketing, and do not get the book into the bookstore distribution channels.

Business model

Vanity publishers typically have one sided contracts, charge high fees, provide low quality, sell worthless add-on services related to editing and marketing, and frequently scam the author.

A self-publisher is an author who also undertakes the functions of a publisher for his or her own book. The classic "self-publisher" does all these tasks personally, except perhaps for the actual printing and binding for which a printer may be hired. More recently, there has arisen the case of an author who intends to self-publish, but does this by contracting for a package of services from a firm that provides such services. Depending on the package involved, the line between self-publishing and vanity publishing is much less clear than it once was.

Many PODs (print on demand companies) using modern digital copy machines are the most recent incarnations of vanity presses. They have turned to scamming authors in order to keep their machines busy and to help pay for them. During the first years of the 21st century the printing business went into a slump and the gross oversupply of digital printing machines (like big Xerography machines with add-on units to bind books) forced the traditional printers as well as the new print on demand companies to seek new sources of revenue.

Unlike conventional publishers, vanity presses usually pay no royalties and have no distribution apparatus. Actually many claim to pay, and for the author who actually sells some books some may pay a few insignificant royalties - after deducting all of their expenses. Many claim to have distribution but most stores will not stock vanity titles and the major wholesalers and distributors will not deal in most vanity books.

Vanity presses earn their money, not from sales of books to readers like other publishers, but from sales of books to the authors. The author receives the shipment of books and may attempt to resell them through whatever channels are available. In some cases, the copies are not even bound.

Another big revenue source, often exceeding the printing costs (especially for print on demand companies), is to sell worthless services for editing, marketing and other related areas. Since the new print on demand technologies make small print runs feasible, authors only get a handful of books at best unless they buy more at a small discount from the list price.

Alternatives to vanity publishing

Writers considering self-publishing often also consider directly hiring a printer. According to self-publisher and poet Peter Finch, vanity presses charge higher premiums and create a risk that an author who has published with a vanity press will have more difficulty working with a respectable publisher in the future.

Some PODs (print on demand companies) using modern digital copy machines have chosen to act as printers and sellers of support services for authors interested in self-publishing. Such firms are typically marked by clear contract terms, lack of excessive fees, retail prices comparable to those from traditional printers, lack of pressure to purchase "extra" services, contracts which to not claim exclusive rights to the work being published, and honest indications of what services they will and won't provide, and what results the author may reasonably expect. The distinction between these firms and vanity presses is important, but hard to make.

Libraries

The typical library does not consider the product of a vanity press to be a quality book, since most vanity publications have not gone through selection, revision, copyedit and other critical steps which are the norm for a book produced by a traditional for-profit publisher. Most libraries will not accept such vanity publications, even when they are offered free of charge, since even then there are costs involved: all library books have to be described in the catalogue and given classification stickers and other elements. The total cost of cataloguing and general processing in 2002 was about $50 per book in the United States regardless of the size or original cost of the book. Then, the cost of keeping the book on the shelves has to be added, each year. In any case, it is usual for books to be chosen for a library by the application of a collection development policy designed to meet the needs of a particular user community, and vanity publications only rarely meet those needs.

On the rare occasions when libraries accept the product of a vanity press, they will have the donator sign a release form giving to the library the right to do what it pleases with the item. More likely than not the item will then be disposed of in a yearly book sale or by some other process for the distribution of unwanted items.

Many libraries and reviewers do not clearly distinguish between vanity publications and self-publications, and are apt to decline or resist any book that does not come from a traditional press. Indeed in some cases any book produced using POD technology encounters such resistance, even if it is from a small traditional publisher.

History

It should be noted that in the nineteenth centaury and early twentieth centaury it was common for legitimate authors, if they could afford to, to pay the costs of publishing their books, in return for greater control of their work, or greater profits, or both. This was not looked at in the negative light that the term "vanity publication" now implies. Among the authors taking this route to publication was Lewis Carroll, who paid the expenses of publishing Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and most of his subsequent work.

Vanity Presses in Fiction

Umberto Eco's humorous novel Foucault's Pendulum discusses the inside workings of a vanity press publishing house.

Some vanity presses

• Abecedarian Books, Inc.
• AuthorHouse (formerly 1st Books Library)
• iUniverse
• Xlibris
• PublishAmerica
• Dorrance

See also

• Print on demand
• Author mill

External links

• http://www.aeonix.com/vanity.htm
• Writer Beware on Vanity Presses