#vanity press

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I already have what I need. I don't need to pay 2000 dollars to make me feel or prove that I am deserving or big, when all you want to do is money off me. I exist, I breathe, therefore I write and I write therefore I am in every small reblog, every small soul

that comes along and feels what I said

every loneliness I clear away everytime I am possessed by words, everytime I glimpse something about the Pattern of the world and it will, the fame will come, when it’s due

I am on the fringe since I was 13 and I've grown up being there, so indeed, no vanity press for me, please

sure there is a monster inside of me

yearning for fame, and things

but it would eat me up from the inside,

I got an email today from IUniverse, an ‘assisted self-publishing platform’. Keep in mind I have never signed up with them and yet they were asking me if I was still going to publish my book and that I should sign up for their discounted rates right now, even if I don’t plan to publish anytime soon.

I just want to say, since they seem to be a big company making a lot of money, that they are a vanity press. They are a scam. I know their website looks pretty and they have a twitter and a youtube and a facebook and the works but they will charge you thousands of dollars for their ‘services’ and then leave you hanging. They have already made their money, they do not care if your book sells.

Their website is full of red flags, and if you google their name some of the first page results are people sharing their horrible experiences with them.

So, a couple reminders:

If a company contacts you first when you’ve never signed up for them and they have no reason to have heard of you, they’re a scam.

If they are charging you a lot of money to publish a book, they are a scam. (If you are self-publishing then yes, there are certain things you should pay a professional to help you do, such as editing and cover art, but PLEASE research any person/company you don’t know). 

Shigeto - “New Course”

by Boni Wagner-Stafford from the Self Publishing Advice Center of ALLI (Alliance of Independent Authors)

In response to a continuing misapprehension in certain quarters that paying for author services means a self-published author is vanity published, Boni Wagner-Stafford  of Ingenium Books makes the case for effective deployment of paid services as essential for serious authorpreneurs and explains why it’s not a black and white situation.

I participate in a number of indie author forums on Facebook. In some I’m a lurker, in others I will poke my digital head up once in awhile if I feel I have something to learn, or less often, to contribute. Recently someone posted a question (no, not on the ALLi page) ‘on behalf of a friend’ who had just been offered a ‘publishing contract’ and would need to pay a sum on

Recently someone posted a question (no, not on the ALLi page) ‘on behalf of a friend’ who had just been offered a ‘publishing contract’ and would need to pay a sum on execution of said contract. The question was, “Should he do it?”

It wasn’t clear but I assumed the contract in question was for assisted self-publishing. The comments, nearly one hundred of them, raged on about whether an indie author should EVER pay ANY money related to the publishing of his/her book.

All comments except mine were a resounding ‘no’.

Let me explain.

Why My Advice Went Against the Flow

Full disclosure: I’ve just launched a hybrid/indie publishing company called Ingenium Books. We help non-fiction self-publishing indie authors centralize all those little and not-so-little tasks every indie author needs help with:

ghostwriting

a range of editing services

proofreading

cover design

formatting

liaison with distributors

Our contracts are clear that authors retain copyright, worldwide distribution rights, and full control. We are paid for our services, yes, but not by taking a cut of royalties. I bristle at the suggestion we are a vanity publisher.

Many commenters on this Facebook trail reiterated the tenet of Yog’s law, coined by James D Macdonald, that “money should flow to the author”. Who can argue with that? Many of us feed, clothe and house our families on the backs of our writing and publishing pursuits. Having money flow to the author ensures our families don’t starve.

What I disagree with is taking Yog’s law at face value and adopting a black and white view that the self-published author should never pay for anything. There’s a veritable rainbow on the spectrum between black and white.

McDonald himself admits that when you’re talking about self-publishing, staying true to Yog’s Law requires an attitude sleight-of-hand:

When you write, you’re the author and money flows to you.

When you begin to engage in the publisher’s activity of editing, proofreading, cover design and formatting, etcetera, you don the proverbial publisher’s hat and pay for the services needed to ensure a professional product with the best possible chances of selling.

With these two hats, you can stay true to dear old Yog. However, you know and I know that hat is sitting on the same sun-bleached grey-blonde head.

Good advice about self publishing for all authors, by Jonathan Kile, in Creative Loafing.

I was recently in a spirited discussion with a couple of battle-scarred writers about book deals, publishers, marketing, and the various successes and challenges that our colleagues have faced. I have friends and acquaintances who have “traditional” book deals and I have friends who’ve self published. And then there are the tempting vanity presses. Being as this blog is called The Self Publishing Notebook, I’m going to have a bias toward the self publishing model, but I’ll admit it’s not for everyone. If you have a better chance at a book deal than my cat (which I don’t), go for it. And, frankly, if a publisher walked up to my door and offered me an advance, I’d be all ears. ( Having done time as a door-to-door salesman, I’m a softy for street peddlers — to my wife’s dismay.) The point is that self-publishing is a legitimate and often more successful vehicle for writers who stand little chance in the beleaguered world of traditional book publishing. (Particularly fiction.) The reason I chose self publishing was that I wanted to write fiction — not query letters.

But I do have a confession. Somewhere along in my journey — I’m not even sure how they got my number — I had a conversation with a person from a well-known vanity publisher. They called to tell me that they were interested in publishing my book. Flattering! Although I had literally nothing out there that they could have read. Perhaps my undergraduate treatise on Canadian labor economics had them convinced that I was going to be a successful novelist (given my knowledge of the topic, it probably could have been filed as “fiction”). The person was intent on having me hire them to edit my book and design a cover — and get their foot in my door/wallet.

I got off the phone, Googled the company’s name and didn’t have to go far to find horror stories of people getting ripped off for tens of thousands of dollars. Other than the testimonials on their own website, I could find absolutely nothing to suggest that it was a good idea. I found stories of people who shelled out $20,000 and got a royalty check that wouldn't buy you lunch. As far as I can tell, they take money, provide you with a few books (so fun to hold your very own book written by you! Happy day!), and spend their most valuable (gullible) clients’ money advertising in the New York Time Book Review. The ads are terrible. This outfit is so sharp that the amusingly named “Carl,” who has a thick Hindi accent and a few hundred people talking in the background, left me a voicemail the other day to see how my book was coming along. Carl, I finished it more than two years ago; you can find it on Amazon. I have only a little sympathy for the writers they ripped off, since they couldn’t take the time to do their research. Worry not, they can recover their losses with their Zimbabwe lottery winnings.

Read the complete article here.