#vanity publishing

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). 

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.

Don’t confuse self-publishing with vanity publishing. Self published authors are the hardest-working people I know.

Great quote on vanity publishing from the article:

Vanity publishers pray on a #writers desire to be published. Please don’t fall into this trap as I did. #WritingCommunity

Vanity publishers pray on a writers desire to be published. Please don’t fall into this trap as I did.

Five years ago, when I started on my writing career I had no idea what I was doing. I had been blogging for years before that, but never took it seriously. I hadn’t research or read about writing.

Despite that, I wrote my first novel. When I look back now it was awful, at the time I thought it…

You’re So Vain – The Evolution of Self-Publishing

From the time Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1456, people have been self-publishing books. By the mid-1500s, traditional publishing companies were being formed with the publishing company paying the author a royalty while taking on the hassles of production and distribution. However, some authors continued to self-publish successfully. Thomas Paine’s book Common Sense, released in 1776,…