Victoria Strauss faces the daunting challenge of trying to detangle the blurring lines of Self Deception and Vanity Publishing.
Writer Beware! Blurred Distinctions: Vanity Publishing vs. Self-Publishing
She does her usual good job but for me it seems to come down to simply Is the writer who is paying for the “publishing services” in question making “profits” or “royalties”? ANY talk of “royalties”, or splitting “royalties”, in the case of “the writer paying for anything” Publishing means there is a deception taking place to dress up the financial deal in the verbiage of traditional Publishing when nothing like that financial risk or investment is actually taking place on the publishers part.
I also use the term Self Publishing Service for places like Lulu because I like them and they are above board and that’s pretty much what they do. Provide Self Publishing Services! So the whole “Assisted” deally is OK but just adds more confusion in my mind because the Deceptive Vanity Publishers are providing “Assistance” too. Assisting people with spending all their money on a scam.
Here is some of the good stuff she writes about…
Self-publishing. I described this above: you handle or contract out all aspects of production and marketing yourself, from editing, to design, to printing/binding, to warehousing, to selling. In true self-publishing, you own your ISBN number (it has also been pointed out to me that some self-publishers don’t use ISBNs), and keep all sales proceeds. You do not grant or encumber your publishing rights in any way.
Assisted self-publishing. Assisted self-publishing companies charge no setup or other fees (although most sell a variety of add-ons, some quite expensive), recoup production costs at the point of sale, and make their money by keeping a cut of profits (you can usually determine what the profit is by setting your own price). They’ll provide their own ISBN, or let you use or buy yours. To enable the company to produce your book, you may be required to grant nonexclusive publishing rights (terminable at will), and to indemnify it against legal action. Examples: Lulu, Cafe Press, Blurb, CreateSpace (although with CreateSpace and BookSurge merging, that may change).
Vanity publishing. Any kind of publishing or publishing service that requires you to pay an upfront or setup fee. This would include print-on-demand publishing services like the Author Solutions brands, former offset vanities like Dorrance Publishing that now use a digital model, and book manufacturers like Brown Books that offer a more elaborate (and more expensive) service, but also the option of short-run printing. Such companies handle the entire publishing process for you, and may or may not exercise some degree of selectivity. In return, you grant publishing rights (usually nonexclusive and terminable at will), accept the company’s ISBN and pricing structure, and are paid a pre-set “royalty.” While not attempting to conceal the fact that they charge fees, or pretending to match your resources with their own, these companies can be quite misleading in their presentation of the benefits of fee-based publishing.
Deceptive vanity publishing. Fee-based publishers that pretend to be something else–whether by failing to reveal their fees on their websites or in their promotional materials (SterlingHouse Publisher, Strategic Book Publishing), charging fees for something other than printing and binding (such as requiring or pressuring authors to buy their own books–American Book Publishing, Anomalous Press, VMI Publishers), claiming to match authors’ fees with their own money or resources (Commonwealth Publications, Northwest Publishing), or denying that they are vanity or subsidy publishers despite charging a fee.
Tags: eBook Commentary, Lulu, Self Publishing
S.L. Armstrong wrote,
I discussed this sort of thing last week when I posted about vanity, traditional, and self-publishing. I think there is a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to self-publishing, and there definitely is a crossing of wires in the self-publishing vs. vanity publishing models are concerned.
I’m in the process of actually setting up my own small, independent press that will publish not only my words — and my co-authored works — but also the works of other emerging writers, accepting only unagented submissions. We are going through all the legal paperwork as I speak and hope to be up and running by the middle of 2010. However, many have stated because I will publish my own works through the press, it muddles whether or not the press is vanity and/or self-publishing, trying to strip away the legitimacy of what I intend to do (I have no intention of having my authors pay me to publish their books as I am the one footing those up-front investments, but I do expect them to promote themselves, which is somehow leading to me being categorized as a vanity publisher, which confuses the hell out of me). I think there is such a fine line between vanity, self, and independent publishing, and too many people are squinting their eyes in order to blur that line.
Not that you are. :) I rather like what you have to say, and I love the fact that you don’t really care how a book came into being. If it’s good, it’s good, and you’ll buy it. I respect that about you quite a lot.
Link | December 5th, 2009 at 4:35 am
TeddyPig wrote,
Well, that is not totally correct. I do care about the quality of the books I buy. I care about good cover art. I care about good editing and good stories and authors who know how the market works. I like the fact that a Samhain or a Loose Id filters through offerings and then selects stories they think are good to edit and put a nice cover on and invest their money in and I will buy those eBooks because then I don’t have to do all that work to find a good story to read.
I will pick up self published works from authors I find through ePublishers or “traditional” publishers. Authors who obviously have the talent and capability of selling their work and having it published by a Samhain or Loose Id. I honestly don’t think a writer starting out really has the craft or the experience or the connections to handle self publishing. They are the prime target for the vanity publishers because they have no clue what they are doing.
So… I am not that progressive in what I buy. I do support writers having options to self publish through a honest above board self publishing service like a Lulu but I buy mostly from ePublishers myself.
When it comes down to it I think writers have to prove themselves in the market by being able to sell their hard work through ePublishers or “traditional” publishers and get their name out there and go through and learn the publishing process before I will consider buying something they “self published”. I admit it’s a trust issue and I like Samhain and Loose Id or even “traditional” publishers like Cleis Press (although they need to get their stock made into eBooks ASAP) because I know they invest in their money and efforts into their writers and like what they produce.
Link | December 5th, 2009 at 5:45 am
S.L. Armstrong wrote,
Not to be inflammatory or push the issue, but I disagree with your assessment that a book is worth purchasing if, and only if, a publisher thinks they can profit from it. There are good books that get passed over because a publisher doesn’t feel they can profit, and there are bad books that saturate the shelves because they make money. Good and bad are so subjective, and I prefer to have the ability to use my own judgment rather than relying on someone else to make that decision for me.
I love Loose Id and Samhain, but just like I’ve read some great titles from them, I’ve also read a lot of crap. I think that’s just where you and I differ. I don’t consider a book worthy of purchasing merely because it has been vetted and approved by someone I don’t know, will never meet, may have different tastes than I, and whose primary concern is making a profit.
Thank you for your opinions, though. I think differing views are what make the world quite an interesting place. :)
Link | December 5th, 2009 at 7:33 am
TeddyPig wrote,
Well that whole “concern about making a profit” seems to do the trick in that small ePublishers like Samhain or Loose Id or Ellora’s Cave are attempting as small ePublishers to have more hits than misses. That concern over profit and customers has worked for years now and it works even better online.
In my opinion it’s been the lack of access to the customers and their wants that was created by places like the Barnes & Nobles and the distribution chains that caused issues since people can now get books online directly from ePublishers like Samhain and Loose Id and this lets them profit from direct sales. They edit and produce cover art and stories that their customers read veraciously.
It sounds like that is what you are attempting to do also and I wish you well.
As I said it’s about customers and establishing trust. I trust places like Samhain and Loose Id because I do “know” the people involved and I do talk to the authors involved and I know they are good writers and good editors and good graphic artists working together. Something about them being online and them wanting to hear from their customers is creating a community interaction actually.
Publishers need to try and understand the Internet and benefit from this community interaction with the customers but I don’t get the feeling “traditional” publishing houses in New York like Harlequin or even TOR can handle that change in their model. It has to become more personal, more point of sale, more by request of the readers, more about the author as a person which is freaking a lot of people out, but their model does not allow for that type of feedback from the customer. The ability to see what writers work and which do not is both a good thing and a hard pill to swallow. The control is shifting to the customer as it should and the Internet demands that happen quickly.
That’s where the real experiment lies in publishing. Ability to handle and interpret customer feedback and interaction on a direct level in real time to create content and sales. NOT in recycling the old “everyone wants to be a writer so pay us to make you one” bullshit and NOT even in recycling the same old content and same old writers because frankly if they did not work the first time they will not work now and the Internet will make sure you know exactly in blow by blow high definition WHY they will not work.
Good Luck!
Link | December 5th, 2009 at 8:42 am
Royalty fees wrote,
[...] Are There Grades Of Vanity? | The Naughty Bits [...]
Link | December 5th, 2009 at 4:53 pm