Vanity Presses, Self-publishing?

IMO vanity publishing isn't the same as self-publishing. Self-publishing is for writers who want to build a name for themselves as authors but choose (for whatever reason) not to hand over control of their books to a publishing company. Vanity publishing is for those who want to see their name on a book and be able to say, "I'm a published author."

Sometimes, writers who want to build a career as an author wind up publishing through a vanity press, either accidentally or because they believe that publisher is their best option.

iUniverse is a serivce that will print and vend any text submitted to them uncritically and exactly as received--whatever you want to call that.

There is usually an easy way to tell the difference. Vanity publishers often charge large up-front fees for the right to publish. Self-publishing takes a share (less than the author's) of the work the author publishes. Money spent is often done with editors, artists, etc. beforehand. The bulk of money from self-publishing flows to the author. Money should ALWAYS flow TO the author in legitimate publishing.

Self-publishing has many viable times - if you are an established author and you want to give your readers something that is not commercially viable (too short, out of genre, etc) then you already have readership and it's a plan, same for established authors who want to make out-of-print backlists available to readers. For new books, self-publishing works best for non-fiction works where the author has a platform for distribution - such as public speaking or corporate training, etc.

Vanity is just bad all the way around. Costs money, puts out crap, rips off authors and then does nothing to promote books. That's the reason it got the name "vanity."

However you want to define these things, iUniverse is not commercial publishing. Authorhouse and iUniverse are both parts of a company called AuthorSolutions. They provide services to self-publishing authors along with the likes of Lulu and Createspace.

The usual definition you'll see is that vanity publishing involved paying a company to do most of the grunt work for you (editing, covers, formating, distribution, purchasing the ISBN etc) while in self publishing you do that yourself.
I've been interviewing a mix of authors who took different routes into publishing on my blog, and the main reason vp authors site for going with companies like authorhouse rather than doing it all themself through lulu is because they don't have the skills to do it themself. There's more risk in vanity publishing because there's a good chance you won't earn your investment back, but a lot of people see it as balanced out compared with the costs of purchasing a variety of new software and learning how to use it to a pass-for-professional level. ePublishing is simpler, and a lot of sites offer templates and walk throughs, so some people use it as a stepping stone.

I also wouldn't assume that vanity is evil/always unsuccessful and self-publishing is successful/loved by all. People come by success in interesting ways, and if you are agile enough you can use an alligator as a stepping stone.

I have never heard of anyone breaking into the commercial market via vanity publishing, whereas there are some people who have broken into the commercial market via self-publishing.

Self-publishing is definitely more lucrative as an end in itself, and the author has more control.

Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander went from fee-charging Authorhouse to HarperCollins.

veinglory said:

Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander went from fee-charging Authorhouse to HarperCollins.

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Thanks! That's good to know.

Far from a typical case, of course. But never say never, etc....

The average reader does not know the difference between Vanity published vs Self-Published. Both are found at the same book selling sites such as Amazon, along with commercially published books. The average reader don't know and don't care...

If you look at the number of books published in 2009, there were something like 750,000 and only about 219,000 were published by commercial publishers, large and small. (Or so I have read, but my number may be off as I don't recall the exact figures. If they are, its not by much.)

No matter which route you go, the book has to stand on its own merits and find an audience, which seems to be getting harder and harder no matter what route you go. Why? Because like any other market, over saturation tends to lower the value of everyone in the market...

I am constantly told the cream will rise to the top. My fear - a lot of the cream will sour before it rises...

You might note in the Amazon reviews that more general customers are noticing and not in a good way.

Well this is true, more and more average readers are becoming educated about vanity and PoD publishing. Still, lumping all Vanity and or PoD into a single category does not really define if a book is good or not.

I have never refused to review a book just because it was PoD or Vanity, nor have I given a book a negative review just because it was PoD or Vanity.

For POD people I will only review a book if it is self-published.

But I would hope that authors and other publishing entusiasts could discuss publishing categories without reporting to the extremes of 'they are all crap' or 'there is no noticeable difference between this category and another category'.

There is an average difference between a self-published book and a big 5 book. Sensible people do not use this as a basis for an all encompassing prejudice--nor do they consider 'publsiher' (type, name reputation) it a factor not worth noticing.

To have a reputation for quality every publisher has to earn it. Self-publishers have fewer books and often fewer resources and dare I say skill. Some still manage it. I will buy a self-published book from LK Campbell, M Christian or Donna Barr sight unseen because they are damn good. Not just damn good authors, but damn good publishers.

I may buy a Tor book or a harlequin just based on publisher and general 'look'.

An unknown self-publisher? That gets more scrutiny and it would take more to get me to buy.

Actually, iUniverse/Authorhouse has a fairly complex editorial evaluation system in place. They don't just open up an envelope and slap a manuscript down on a scanner and then send the files to the press room.

jana13k said:

Self-publishing has many viable times - if you are an established author and you want to give your readers something that is not commercially viable (too short, out of genre, etc) then you already have readership and it's a plan, same for established authors who want to make out-of-print backlists available to readers. For new books, self-publishing works best for non-fiction works where the author has a platform for distribution - such as public speaking or corporate training, etc.

Vanity is just bad all the way around. Costs money, puts out crap, rips off authors and then does nothing to promote books. That's the reason it got the name "vanity."

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I agree with you about vanity publishing---a truly appropriate name.

Just as a point of interest: iuniverse is partnering with the Authors Guild on a program called "Back in Print" for Authors Guild members with books that were commercially published but have gone out of print. If you can show that rights have reverted to the author, they'll do a POD edition at no cost to the writer. Royalties are about 15%, and the best part is that the grant of rights can be cancelled unilaterally by the author with just 30 days notice; so if a publisher should want to do reissue those earlier titles, there's no impediment.

As a former literary agent, I'm highly suspicious of most applications of self-publishing or vanity publishing, so it took me a while to accept this idea. But my own agent thinks it's a win-win situation--in fact, she was involved in negotiating the deal--and they have some marquee-name authors who've already signed on. Just a heads up to others who might be interested...

As mainstream publishing continues to fragment and compress, self-publishing will become more of the norm for professional writers, too.

Whatever mainstream publishing is contorting itself into will not be anything like the way it was ten years ago...or even three.

All options need to fully explored and and examined.

I don't know what percentage of sales are self published now versus int he past. But I don't think there has been any kind of revolution yet and some consumers are getting bemused by the whole thing.

Just this Saturday a friend handed me a big shrink wrpped book. She had been burned in the past by self-published books. I looked it up and said it was a pro book, re-released by iUniverse, originally published in 1967. She put it back, she wasn;t looking for a 'classic'.

I think that self-publishing is opening a lot of doors, but if this isnlt done with some kind of transperancy we risk seeing a backlash from people who aren't buying what they thought they were buying.

Well, I could cite a Bowker report that came out last spring...according to them* the percentage of self-published books in 2009 was very--even exceptionally-- high. Something along the lines of out of the million books released in 2009, nearly 800K were self-published.

But judging by the exceptionally hostile reaction from a couple of folks the last time I referenced that report, it's apparently become some sort of "Secret that hath no name" kind of thing.

Probably best not to talk about it except in parking garages at midnight.

(*according to Bowker, not me...I'm just the messenger)

I think going by the titles released is misleading. releasing a book now is effortless, selling more than 20 copies of it is hard. I don' count a book a success upon release.

That's why I said: "I don't know what percentage of sales are self published now versus in the past"

I bet the proportion that were self-published was pretty high around 1900, dipped through the last century, and might be creeping up now but I don't know.

I agree that there should be some sort of consumer labeling--I hesitate to say warning--for self-published and/or vanity-published books on sites like Amazon.com. I was doing research recently and bought a bunch of books on a particular subject from Amazon. One turned out to be self-published, which I wouldn't have minded if it had been good; but it wasn't and I felt cheated.

brainstorm77 said:

I know that IUniverse and the many others are considered vanity presses, but is it still considered self publishing? I'm asking because it made me wonder from another thread about self-published books...

Thoughts? I'm curious how you classify pay to play.

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"Subsidy publishing." (Or vanity publishing if the publisher has fooled the author into a false belief that the book has been legitimately, commercially published for an audience of readers rather than printed with the sole expectation of purchases by the author.)

If the author does not own the ISBN, the book is not self-published. See my booklet (link is in sig. block) for an overview and for my explanation of the terminology. (Not all will agree with the terminology, but at least I explain mine.)

--Ken