For the Wikipedia guideline on vanity pages see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest
A
vanity press or
vanity publisher is a publishing house that publishes books at the author's expense. Publisher Johnathon Clifford claims to have coined the term in 1959.
According to the US
National Endowment for the ArtsThe National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
, "For the purposes of this category, a vanity press is defined as one that does any of the following: requires individual writers to pay for part or all of the publication costs; asks writers to buy or sell copies of the publication; publishes the work of anyone who subscribes to the publication or joins the organization through membership fees; publishes the work of anyone who buys an advertisement in the publication; publishes work without competitive selection; or publishes work without professional editing."
A vanity press will generally agree to
printPrinting is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing.-History:...
and
bindBookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book from a number of folded or unfolded sheets of paper or other material. It also usually involves attaching covers to the resulting text-block.- History :...
any author's work if the author is willing to pay for the service; these fees typically form a vanity press's
profitsAccounting profit is the difference between price and the costs of bringing to market whatever it is that is accounted as an enterprise in terms of the component costs of delivered goods and/or services and any operating or other expenses.A key difficulty in measuring profit is in defining costs...
. However, online
on-demandPrint on demand , sometimes called publish on demand, is a printing technology and business process in which new copies of a book are not printed until an order has been received...
printers also fit this definition as they publish without competitive selection.
In contrast, commercial publishers, whether major companies or
small pressSmall press is a term often used to describe publishers with annual sales below a certain level. Commonly, in the United States, this is set at $50 million, after returns and discounts...
es, derive their profit from sales of the book. Publishers must therefore be cautious and deliberate in choosing to publish works that will sell, particularly as they must recoup their investment in the book (such as an
advance paymentAn advance payment, or simply an advance, is the part of a contractually due sum that is paid in advance for goods or services, while the balance included in the invoice will only follow the delivery. It is called a prepaid expense in accrual accounting.-See also:*Advance against royalties*Pay or...
and
royaltiesRoyalties are usage-based payments made by one party to another for ongoing use of an asset, sometimes an intellectual property right. Royalties are typically a percentage of gross or net sales derived from use of an asset or a fixed price per unit sold of an item...
to the author,
editorEditing is the process of selecting and preparing language, images, sound, video, or film through processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications in various media...
ial guidance,
promotionPromotion involves disseminating information about a product, product line, brand, or company. It is one of the five key aspects of the marketing mix....
,
marketingMarketing is an integrated communications-based process through which individuals and communities are informed or persuaded that existing and newly-identified needs and wants may be satisfied by the products and services of others....
, or
advertisingAdvertising is a form of communication used to influence individuals to purchase products or services or support political candidates or ideas. Frequently it communicates a message that includes the name of the product or service and how that product or service could potentially benefit the consumer...
). To better help sell their books, commercial publishers may also be selective in order to cultivate a reputation for high-quality work, or to specialize in a particular
genreA genre is a loose set of criteria for a category of composition; the term is often used to categorize literature and speech, but is also used for any other form of art or utterance...
.
Because vanity presses are not selective, publication by a vanity press is typically not seen as conferring the same recognition or prestige as commercial publication. Vanity presses do offer more independence for the author than does the mainstream publishing industry; however, their fees can be higher than the fees normally charged for similar printing services, and sometimes restrictive contracts are required.
While a commercial publisher's intended market is the general public, a vanity publisher's intended market is the author.
Differences from commercial publishers
Although vanity presses are a legitimate publishing option, the term "vanity press" has become derogatory, and is often used to imply that an author who self-publishes using such a service is only publishing out of
vanityIn conventional parlance, vanity is the excessive belief in one's own abilities or attractiveness to others. Prior to the 14th century it did not have such narcissistic undertones, and merely meant futility. The related term vainglory is now often seen as an archaic synonym for vanity, but...
, and that his or her work could not be commercially successful, an assumption that is not true in all cases. In other words, a work published by a vanity press is typically assumed to be unpublishable elsewhere.
Some companies offer
printingPrinting is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing.-History:...
(and, very rarely, limited distribution) for a fee. Such services can be a viable way for an author to
self-publishSelf-publishing is the publishing of books and other media by the authors of those works, rather than by established, third-party publishers. Although it represents a small percentage of the publishing industry in terms of sales, it has been present in one form or another since the beginning of...
without owning printing equipment. This is particularly attractive to an author of a work with a limited, specialized appeal which may not interest mainstream publishers, or to the author who intends to promote his or her work personally. Some people see self-publishing as a form of vanity publishing because the author pays the costs of printing the work and takes charge of promoting and selling it.
Scholarly journals often ask authors to pay page charges but use
peer reviewPeer review is the process of subjecting an author's scholarly work, research, or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field. Peer review requires a community of experts in a given field, who are qualified and able to perform impartial review...
to keep a high scientific standard. This is to be distinguished from the true vanity publisher, who will publish anything within their general market that will be paid for.
Poets often
self-publishSelf-publishing is the publishing of books and other media by the authors of those works, rather than by established, third-party publishers. Although it represents a small percentage of the publishing industry in terms of sales, it has been present in one form or another since the beginning of...
, as their work is generally of extremely specialized appeal, and therefore risky to mainstream publishers.
A mainstream publisher traditionally assumes the risk of publication and production costs, selects the works to be published, edits the author's text, and provides for
marketingMarketing is an integrated communications-based process through which individuals and communities are informed or persuaded that existing and newly-identified needs and wants may be satisfied by the products and services of others....
and
distributionDistribution is one of the four elements of marketing mix. An organization or set of organizations involved in the process of making a product or service available for use or consumption by a consumer or business user....
, provides the ISBN and satisfies whatever
legal depositLegal deposit is a legal requirement that a person or group submit copies of their publications to a repository, usually a library. The requirement was originally limited to books and journals, but with the advance of technology many countries amended the law to include voice recordings, movies,...
and
copyright registrationThe purpose of copyright registration is to place on record a verifiable account of the date and content of the work in question, so that in the event of a legal claim, or case of infringement or plagiarism, the copyright owner can produce a copy of the work from an official government...
formalities are required. Such a publisher normally pays the author a fee, called an
advanceIn the field of intellectual property licensing, an advance against royalties is a payment made by the licensee to the licensor at the start of the period of licensing which is to be offset against future royalty payments.For example, a book's author may sell a license to a publisher in return for...
, for the right to publish the author's work; and further payments, called
royaltiesCopyright is a form of intellectual property that gives the author of an original work exclusive right for a certain time period in relation to that work, including its publication, distribution and adaptation, after which time the work is said to enter the public domain...
, based on the sales of the work. This led to
James D. MacdonaldJames D. Macdonald is an American author and critic who lives in New Hampshire with his wife and frequent collaborator, Dr. Debra Doyle. He works in several genres, concentrating on fantasy, but also writing science fiction, and mystery and media tie-ins.-Biography:Macdonald was born in 1954, and...
's famous dictum, "
Money should always flow toward the author" (sometimes called Yog's Law).
A vanity publisher will publish almost any book if the author is willing to pay. This lack of selectivity is the main reason for the low esteem which most of the literary world assigns to vanity publishers. Other reasons include fear of new independent publishing channels for authors and
elitismElitism is the belief or attitude that those individuals who are considered members of the elite—a select group of people with outstanding personal abilities, intellect, wealth, specialized training or experience, or other distinctive attributes—are those whose views on a matter are to...
. Such a term is not used in other art forms, i.e., a filmmaker who "publishes" a film and distributes it is not considered a "vanity filmmaker," a sculptor who creates a work through a foundry is not considered less of a sculptor.
Vanity publishers typically do little or no effective marketing. Formerly, they did little or no distribution. Today, vanity publishers may offer web-based sales, or make a book available via online booksellers, but they generally do no marketing.
Among the many types of books that are unpublishable by major commercial presses, family histories often find their way onto vanity presses, since family histories have an extremely limited market—often fewer than ten copies.
Business model
With vanity publishing, the author will pay to have their book published. Since the author is paying to have the book published the book should not have to go through an approval process as it would in a traditional setting where the publisher is taking a financial risk on the author's ability to write successfully. Editing and formatting services may or may not be offered, and they may come with the initial publishing fee (or more correctly, printing fee) or might be at an additional cost.
A
self-publisherSelf-publishing is the publishing of books and other media by the authors of those works, rather than by established, third-party publishers. Although it represents a small percentage of the publishing industry in terms of sales, it has been present in one form or another since the beginning of...
is an author who also undertakes the functions of a publisher for his or her own book. The classic "self-publisher" writes, edits, markets and promotes the book themselves, relying on a
printerA printer is a company that provides commercial printing services, often also offering typesetting and book-binding services. The term can also refer to people who operate printing presses, or who run printing companies....
only for actual printing and
bindingBinding may refer to:* Binding , a property relating to anaphors and c-command* Legally binding, in lawJoining physical objects together:* Foot binding* Ski binding, a device for connecting a foot to a ski...
. More recently, companies have offered their services to act as a sort of agent between the writer and a small printing operation. In these cases, the distinction between self-publishing and vanity publishing is less obvious than it once was.
A slightly more sophisticated model of a vanity press is described by
Umberto EcoUmberto Eco is an Italian medievalist, semiotician, philosopher, literary critic and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
in
Foucault's PendulumFoucault's Pendulum is a novel by Italian novelist and philosopher Umberto Eco. It was first published in 1988; the translation into English by William Weaver appeared a year later....
. The company that provides initial setting for the novel operates a small yet respectable arts and humanities publishing house as a front. It does not make a profit but it brings a steady flow of substandard authors. They are politely rejected and then referred to
another publishing firm in the same office – the vanity press that will print anything for money.
The most recent incarnations of vanity presses make use of
print on demandPrint on demand , sometimes called publish on demand, is a printing technology and business process in which new copies of a book are not printed until an order has been received...
technologies based on modern digital printing. These companies are often able to offer their services with little or no upfront cost to the author, but they are still considered vanity presses by many writers advocates. Vanity presses earn their money, not from sales of books to readers as other publishers do, but from sales of books to the books' authors. The author receives the shipment of his or her books and may attempt to resell them through whatever channels are available.
Alternatives to vanity publishing
Writers considering
self-publishingSelf-publishing is the publishing of books and other media by the authors of those works, rather than by established, third-party publishers. Although it represents a small percentage of the publishing industry in terms of sales, it has been present in one form or another since the beginning of...
often also consider directly hiring a
printerA printer is a company that provides commercial printing services, often also offering typesetting and book-binding services. The term can also refer to people who operate printing presses, or who run printing companies....
. According to self-publisher and
poetA poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
Peter FinchPeter Finch is a Welsh poet, critic, author and literary entrepreneur living in Cardiff, Wales. He is Chief Executive of Academi, the Welsh National Literature Promotion Agency and Society of Writers. As a writer he works in both traditional and experimental forms...
, vanity presses charge higher premiums and create a risk that an author who has published with a vanity press will have more difficulty working with a respectable publisher in the future.
Some vanity presses using
print on demandPrint on demand , sometimes called publish on demand, is a printing technology and business process in which new copies of a book are not printed until an order has been received...
technology act as printers as well as sellers of support services for authors interested in self-publishing. Reputable firms of this type are typically marked by clear contract terms, lack of excessive fees, retail prices comparable to those from commercial printers, lack of pressure to purchase "extra" services, contracts which do not claim exclusive rights to the work being published (though one would be hard pressed to find a legitimate publisher willing to put out a competing edition, making non-exclusivity meaningless), and honest indications of what services they will and won't provide, and what results the author may reasonably expect. However, the distinction between the worst of these firms and vanity presses is essentially trivial, though a source of great confusion as the low fees have attracted tens of thousands of authors who wish to avoid the stigma of vanity publishing while doing just that.
Libraries
Libraries often choose books by the application of a collection development policy designed to meet the needs of a particular user community. Many libraries and reviewers do not clearly distinguish between vanity publications and self-publications.
When libraries accept the product of a vanity press, they may require the donor to sign a form giving to the library the right to do what it pleases with the item.
History
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it was common for legitimate authors to, if they could afford it, pay the costs of publishing their books. Such writers could expect more control of their work, greater profits, or both. Self-publishing was not judged negatively as it has been more recently. Among the authors taking this route were
Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pen name Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer...
, who paid the expenses of publishing
Alice's Adventures in WonderlandAlice's Adventures in Wonderland is a novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells the story of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar and anthropomorphic creatures. The tale is filled with...
and most of his subsequent work.
Mark TwainSamuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. Twain is most noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which has since been called the Great American Novel, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He is extensively quoted...
,
Zane GreyZane Grey was an American author best known for his popular adventure novels and stories that presented an idealized image of the rugged Old West...
,
Upton SinclairUpton Sinclair, Jr. , was a Pulitzer Prize-winning prolific American author who wrote over 90 books in many genres. He achieved considerable popularity in the first half of the 20th century, gaining particular fame for his 1906 muckraking novel The Jungle. The book...
,
Carl SandburgCarl Sandburg was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and another for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat."-Biography:Sandburg was born in Galesburg,...
,
Edgar Rice BurroughsEdgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:...
,
George Bernard ShawGeorge Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60 plays...
,
Edgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan Poe was an American writer, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the...
,
Rudyard KiplingRudyard Kipling was a British author and poet. Born in Bombay, British India, he is best known for his works of fiction The Jungle Book , Kim , many short stories, including The Man Who Would Be King ; and his poems, including...
,
Henry David ThoreauHenry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, philosopher, and leading transcendentalist...
,
Walt WhitmanWalter Whitman was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist. He was a part of the transition between Transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
and
Anaïs NinAnaïs Nin was a Cuban-Catalan-French author who became famous for her published journals, which span more than 60 years, beginning when she was 11 years old and ending shortly before her death...
also self-published some or all of their works. Not all of these well-known authors were successful in their ventures; Mark Twain's publishing business, for example, went bankrupt.
Ernest Vincent WrightErnest Vincent Wright was an American author.-Biography:His most famous work is Gadsby, "A Story of Over 50,000 Words", which, except for the introduction and a note at the end, did not use the letter e. Every word was properly spelled and all narration was grammatically correct...
, author of the 1939 novel
Gadsby: Champion of Youth, famous for being written entirely in
lipogramA lipogram is a kind of constrained writing or word game consisting of writing paragraphs or longer works in which a particular letter or group of letters is omitted — usually a common vowel, the most common in English being "E"...
, was unable to find a publisher for his unusual work and ultimately chose to publish it through a vanity press.
Examples
- American Biographical Institute
The American Biographical Institute is a biographical reference directory publisher based in the United States in Raleigh, North Carolina which has been publishing biographies since 1967...
- AuthorHouse
AuthorHouse, formerly known as 1stBooks, is a self-publishing company, based in the United States. AuthorHouse provides self publishing and utilizes print on demand services...
(formerly 1st Books Library)
- Dorrance
- Famous Poets Society
The Famous Poets Society is a vanity press that offers a poetry contest, a convention contest, and vanity publishing opportunities. Poets can submit their poems online using the website. Nearly all responses, regardless of artistic merit, are eligible for publication. All accepted submissions...
- iUniverse
iUniverse, founded in October 1999, is one of the largest self-publishers in the United States, using print-on-demand technology to publish more than 5,000 new titles each year. iUniverse has strategic alliances with Barnes & Noble, Inc. in the U.S. and Chapters Indigo in Canada...
- Ivy House
- Poetry.com
Until recently, the domain name Poetry.com was owned by New Catalyst Fund. On March 7, 2009, Lulu.com purchased that domain from NCF. Publish Today and Noble House Books, the branches of Poetry.com that managed the publishing and printing of their books, have gone out of business.According to their...
, aka The International Library of Poetry
- PublishAmerica
PublishAmerica is a Maryland-based print-on-demand book publisher founded in 1999 by Lawrence Alvin "Larry" Clopper III and Willem Meiners ....
- Steffans Publishing
- Tate Publishing & Enterprises
Tate Publishing & Enterprises, LLC is a Christian publisher that prints books of all types and that operates on the vanity press model in which authors pay for the publication of their books. One of its more notable books is titled Vanity of Vanities...
(there are at least three companies called Tate Publishing; the others include a reputable art publisher and a defunct software book publisher)
- Vantage Press
- Xlibris
Xlibris is a Bloomington Indiana-based self-publishing and on-demand printing services provider founded in 1997. In 2000, Random House bought 49% of the company. , Random House still owned a minority share of 49%. , The New York Times stated it to be the foremost on-demand publisher...
See also
- Author mill
An author mill is a variety of vanity press. The name was coined by Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware, as a parallel formation from diploma mill and puppy mill An author mill is a variety of vanity press. The name was coined by Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware, as a parallel formation from...
- Print on demand
Print on demand , sometimes called publish on demand, is a printing technology and business process in which new copies of a book are not printed until an order has been received...
- Publishing
Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information – the activity of making information available for public view...
- Self-publishing
Self-publishing is the publishing of books and other media by the authors of those works, rather than by established, third-party publishers. Although it represents a small percentage of the publishing industry in terms of sales, it has been present in one form or another since the beginning of...
- Vanity gallery
A vanity gallery is an art gallery that charges artists fees to exhibit their work and makes most of its money from artists rather than from sales to the public. Some vanity galleries charge a lump sum to arrange an exhibition, while others ask artists to pay regular membership fees and then...
External links