The Ins & Outs of Self-Publishing – Part Three

This
is Part Three of a five-part series summarizing my remarks in a panel
discussion on the “Ins and Outs of Self-Publishing” sponsored by the Washington, DC
chapter of the Women’s National Book Association.  In
Parts One and Two of this series, I discussed using a traditional publisher and
self-publishing using print-on-demand (POD) printing. In this Part Three, I discuss publishing via
vanity or subsidy press.

Vanity and Subsidy Presses

When
preparing my remarks and hand-out for the panel, I asked some self-publishers
and small publishers for feedback.  Feedback is what I asked for and feedback is
certainly what I got! One publisher
asked me why I would sully the name of self-publishing by including a
discussion of vanity and subsidy presses so prominently in my remarks.

I believe that in
today’s world it is narrow-minded to dismiss completely subsidy presses as a
means of self-publishing. The negative
view of vanity and subsidy publishing is grounded in bad behavior by some
companies who preyed on the hopes and dreams of aspiring authors.
 

Here
are some of the negative characteristics historically associated with a “vanity
press”. It’s a company that does the
following:

• represents itself as a traditional
  publisher
• accepts any manuscript without evaluating
  its merit
• charges a large amount of money for a small
  quantity of books and then makes no effort to market or distribute the book
  because it has already made its profit from the upfront fee paid by the author

In
the worst case scenario, the vanity press’s contract takes the copyright in the
author’s book so the author can not distribute the book project through any
other channels 

Historically,
there has been a distinction between a vanity press and a subsidy press. A subsidy press helps authors produce their
books for a fee but without any of the shenanigans implemented by the
traditional vanity press model. They do
not represent themselves as traditional publishers, do not take the author’s
copyright, and do not make any promises on the commercial success of the book
project. Somewhere along the line, the terms “vanity press” and “subsidy press”
merged and today are often used interchangeably. I’m going to choose the term subsidy
press.

Today,
many presses that some might classify as subsidy presses use the method of POD
printing discussed in Part Two of this series and are intermediaries between
self-publishers and Lightning Source, one of the largest POD printers. The
advantage of subsidy press is that the subsidy press takes care of the entire
book production process including the cover design, typesetting, and printing. As
long as the subsidy press charges a reasonable mark-up for such services, it is
useful for authors who want to distribute a small number of books to friends,
family and members of clubs with which they’re affiliated.  The high per unit costs make it difficult to
sell subsidy press books through bookstores, wholesalers, or distributors.

Yet,
there are real subsidy press success stories that go beyond the distribution of
a few dozen copies. Two of those success
stories come from my co-panelists on the “Ins and Outs of Self-Publishing”
panel – Veronica Li and Carla Danziger.  I’ll share their stories in the next segment
of this series to be posted on Tuesday, November 13.