Yesterday, a member of one of the Facebook writer groups I belong to asked for some clarification on the matter of vanity presses. I wound up having a bit of back-and-forth with a different member over what exactly constituted a vanity press, so I thought I’d write up a quick post on that very topic for the benefit of authors out there who are ready to release their book, but haven’t figured out what the best approach might be.

You’ve got three basic options:

TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING

This refers to any business — be it one of the “Big Five” publishers (Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster) or a small press — that contracts with a writer to produce novels or books, which said business then prepares (edits, formats, prints, etc.) at its own expense for distribution and sale. The publisher takes a cut of the sales revenue and passes along the rest (royalties) to the author. Publishers typically claim certain rights to the work.

One of the things that distinguishes a publisher from a vanity press is whether they require the author to pay money into the process. A legitimate publisher covers all costs of production and does not require the author to pay for anything! The publisher assumes all financial risk, and it recovers its investment through sales, which it shares with the creator of the content. Money flows toward the writer, in the words of author James D. MacDonald.

The individual mentioned above argued that even big publishers require authors to chip in for promotions. That is at best a half truth.

It’s accurate to say publishers do not always invest money in actively promoting authors unless they feel the return on their investment is sound, either because it’s an established creator or that rare hot new author with a potential blockbuster bestseller, but they don’t require authors to pick up the slack.

However, authors are expected to do a lot of legwork themselves via a website and social media, and the publisher isn’t necessarily going to cover any associated costs (they almost certainly won’t), but again, there is no financial obligation on the author’s part toward the publisher.

In summary: with traditional publishing through a reputable publisher, the author pays nothing up front, is not responsible for an aspect of book preparation, and receives royalties through sales, but doesn’t get all the money and must typically relinquish certain rights to their own work.

SELF-PUBLISHING

With self-publishing, everything is ultimately on you — all the responsibilities and all the costs. Sure, you might farm out things like editing and cover art (and you bloody well should be paying professionals to handle those duties) but you’re still the one responsible for paying them, and you are the final arbiter of the quality of their work. You also get to keep every penny from the sales.

Now, there are operations out there that will, for a fee, provide you with everything you need to turn your finished manuscript into a ready-to-sell book — an editor, a cover artist, printing, distribution, etc. These you would call self-publishing platforms or self-publishing services. Yes, they charge you for their work, but they claim no rights to your book, make no money off of your sales (unless you use them for distribution), and are completely up-front about the fact they are not publishers.

Which brings us to…

VANITY PRESSES

A lot of people argue about what constitutes a vanity press — many of those arguments come from people who run such operations, by the way — but this is my definition: a vanity press is an operation that behaves like a self-publishing service but presents itself as a publisher.

Let me break that down a bit. A vanity press offers all the services of a self-publishing platform as described above and charges the author a fee for them, and collects a percentage of any sales like a publisher — or, to be fair, a self-publishing platform that offers authors a distribution service.

One of the things that distinguishes a vanity press from a self-publishing platform is that a vanity press will claim rights to the author’s work, like a publisher would. In other words, you’re paying a company to lay legal claim to your creation — a legal claim that could be used to deny you royalties (e.g., foreign sales rights) or control over your own creation.

Imagine wanting to write a sequel to your novel, only to be told you can’t because the characters belong to the alleged publisher, or getting an offer to take the book to a major publisher, only to be denied because you’re locked in an exclusive contract with no escape clause. Imagine the vanity press going out of business and taking the rights with them. These things have happened.

Vanity presses often also require authors to buy a certain number of their own books for direct sales or publicity purposes. They key word here is require. I self-publish through Amazon (the service formerly known as CreateSpace), and if I want books to sell at shows or give away, I have to buy them, but I am not contractually obligated to buy a certain quantity of books as a condition of working with the company.

As mentioned previously, a self-publishing platform will clearly identify itself as such. Vanity presses will refer to themselves as publishers, or give the distinct impression of such: “Would you like to become a published author? We can make your dream happen!”

If you’re ever in doubt about the legitimacy of a publisher or self-publishing platform, your best places to go are Writer Beware and the Absolute Write Water Cooler message boards.