What’s The Difference Between Self Publishing and Vanity Publishing?
Want to publish your own book? Where to get started? Well, you’ve got to write the thing first. But after that, what comes next? Editing, of course, and perhaps creating a book design and a cover. But then you need a publisher, right? Maybe. Or you could publish your book yourself. But how much is that going to cost? Maybe thousands of dollars. Maybe nothing. You decide.
Alright. You’ve written your novel. You’ve edited it yourself three or four times. You’ve had a few friends from your reading group to read your novel, preferably offering advice and possibly even editing for you. Maybe you even went to the expense of hiring a professional freelance editor and/or a cover artist. You’ve written your blurb for the back of the book.
Now what?
It’s time to publish.
The traditional publishing route goes something like this: the writer mails off his or her’s manuscript to editors and publishers in hopes an editor or publisher will be interested in the book and will offer a contract on the book. Some writer will instead mail a manuscript to literary agents in hopes an agent will be interested in the book and will take the writer on as a client; in that case, once the writer becomes a client of the agent, the agent will begin trying to get an editor or publisher to become interested in the book, all for a percentage of whatever money the writer make make, usually 15 percent.
All that quite often takes years. Sometimes decades. For one thing, it is rare that a writers first book is great. Many writers must write anywhere from three to seven or more novels before the book is actually any good, or at least good enough for professional publication.
Because of all those years, many authors decide to publish their own work, which can still take time.
Okay, so you think you’re ready to publish. What to do?
You go looking for a publisher or printer or a publishing service.
Printers
But wait a second? If you are self-publishing, do you still need a print publisher?
More than likely, yes. Or, at the least, you’ll need a publishing service.
How so? Well, let’s put it this way: You could potentially shop around for a traditional book printing company, but the prices are likely to by sky high. Most of these printers are likely only going to work with you if you agree to purchase thousands, possibly as many as ten thousand, copies of your book from the printer. That runs into thousands upon thousands of dollars. Perhaps even into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Vanity publishing
Another option is to find a vanity publisher/press and work with them. A vanity publisher basically works as a traditional publisher, except you, the writer, pays them to publish your book. Some vanity publisher are quite expensive, again running into the thousands of dollars.
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The reason the vanity publishers are slated is that many of them make no effort to promote and sell the book, which in the traditional author-publisher model is part of the publisher’s job. Indeed, they have no interest in selling any copies at all because they have already charged the author up front enough to cover all their costs and make a decent profit! They will publish any dross and the book buyers of major chains and the book reviewers writing for newspapers know this and don’t even bother to look at anything sent to them by these publishers. The publishers will tell you they’ve sent review copies off to this and that person, but they know damned will they’ll go straight in the bin on arrival.
There are small-run publishers who don’t follow the vanity model of charging all costs up front if you seek them out, though. Not all small publishers are vanity publishers, but you do have to be damned careful which one you choose.
Then as you say, you have the option of going for print-only services. Or print services with assistance in layout and design. But they won’t promote your book or sell it into the bookshop chains – you have to do that yourself if you go down this route. I know one person for whom it has worked, but she writes local history that only sells in the local area. The local tourist information office and local independent booksellers are willing to carry her books.