There appears to be some confusion about what a vanity publisher is, as traditionally understood. Some associate vanity publishing with self-publishing or indie-publishing. Others with anything that isn’t traditionally published. Others regard any scam type of publisher as falling into the vanity category. So, what’s the real story? How do you know if the publisher or press you are considering is a vanity publisher and whether it is a good deal or not?
Cally Phillips in her article, “What is indie publishing,” takes a valiant stab at how to determine what vanity publishing is. Her basic premise is that whoever has the publishing rights, outside of traditional publishers, determines when someone seeking publication is dealing with a vanity press. Traditional publishers get the publishing rights from authors in exchange for services, marketing, and distribution. “Indie publishers” retain the publishing rights for themselves. While “self-publishers” give the publishing rights to a vanity press while paying for services, thus getting the bad end of both deals. That is a bit of simplification, but that is the essence of her presentation. My only disagreement is in her division between self-publisher and indie-publisher. I treat the two as synonymous, except “indie-publisher” can often refer to a small press as well. But that is what a self-publisher is, a small publisher of one.
I felt we could define this a little better. Because to really identify the “vanity publisher” that is out to rip people off, we need two more measurements: risk and reward. In every business, someone is taking a risk. When a traditional publisher signs an author up, they are taking a risk by investing money in the author’s book, publishing it, distributing it, in the expectations they can make a profit from that venture. Likewise, when someone self-publishes their book, or indie-publishes if you prefer, they are taking the full risk. Spending their money and time to handle the cover, formatting, editing, marketing, and all that goes with being a publisher.
When an author signs a contract with a traditional publisher, they are in effect exchanging the right to publish that book for the duration of the contract for a reduced amount of the rewards. The publisher takes a risk on your book in the hopes of profiting from a successful outcome. They can only do that if they share in the reward of its sales. Which means the author gives up money they could have make per book in exchange for the services and expertise and bigger distribution of the publisher. Obviously in the hopes that a higher number of sales through a publisher would in the end, net them more money, or at least as much than if they had done it themselves.
So we have three measuring sticks. Publishing rights, risk, and rewards. With those three, we can more clearly identify what vanity publishing is, at least, that type that tends to rip off authors, in comparison to the others.
Traditional Publishers take the risk, share in the author’s rewards, and are given publishing rights to a book. We could also include many smaller publishers in this list, in that they operate much like one of the big publishers as regards to these three areas. But note, risk and reward are together. That is key. And rights and rewards are together. All three need to be together for a fair business relationship.
Self-publisher/indie-publisher also takes all the risk and all the rewards. They do this by retaining all their publishing rights, and they are the publisher. They may outsource some of the tasks, like cover art, editing, formatting, cover design, etc. Or they may do it all themselves. And some of them can get taken by bad companies who sell them over-priced services that sometimes do little. But the key here is the self-publisher doesn’t give away part of his royalty to anyone other than perhaps a distributor or printer. There is no other entity labeled “publisher” that takes a percentage of the reward in exchange for the right to publish the book. You’ll also notice, the risk and reward are together based upon that control of the publishing rights.
A vanity publisher is a business entity that pretends to be a self-publisher’s outsourcing of tasks, but acquires some publishing rights. Practically, that means the author cannot self-publish it elsewhere, is paying up front for services, cannot cancel the contract when they want to, and are giving part of their royalty in exchange for the service of getting the book printed and distributed. The vanity publishers end up acting like a publisher in that they take rights and they also take reward by retaining part of the money earned and send you a “royalty” amount. However, and this is key, vanity publishers take none of the risk.
It might help to understand this in light of the days before POD (Print On Demand) and ebooks came into the picture. If an author wanted to self-publish, he had to pay a press to do a run on his book. Since the printing press wasn’t a publisher, they just wanted their money for however many books were printed, usually with a minimum run that enabled them to pay all the people required to do an offset print run on a book. The problem for the author is this could cost thousands. But the distinction still applied then as it does today. A valid self-publisher could hire a press to print a book, just like the big publishers, if they could get the money. And they still retained the publishing rights to their books, took all the risk (a lot more than today), and enjoyed the rewards if the book sold well. The people who could afford to do this were usually people who were well-sought after speakers, and could sell a good number at each engagement, or simply had the expendable cash and time to travel to bookstores and conventions to sell their books.
But certain companies rose up in the days before POD and ebooks who could allow a self-publisher to get their books printed for much cheaper, usually around one thousand dollars. These were the original vanity publishers. They didn’t vet manuscripts like a publisher, but they did offer services for a fee, and had the ability to get a smaller print run done on a book as they could combine to give a printing press more volume of business and therefore less overall cost per book via economies of scale. Smaller print runs meant the author didn’t need to lay out as much money. Some of these companies were on the up and up, but as in any industry, wolves entered the picture, not only providing that service, but becoming the publisher in exchange for retaining part of the sale of each book (reward) and taking none of the risk (the author takes all the financial risk as s/he pays all the costs).
The vanity publishers to avoid have these characteristics: they acquire publishing rights, participate in the reward, but take none of the risks. In essence, the author signs them up as a publisher, but gets none of the benefits of having a publisher, and all the risk of a self-publishing.
Need an easy way to know? Ask yourself this one question. “Do I have the ability to see my sales in real time or near real time and how much I’m earning, or do I have to wait for a royalty check and statement from someone other than a printing press or distributor to have a clue?” If you answer yes to the first, you are a self-publisher/indie-publisher. If you answer yes to the second half but you are taking all the financial risks, they are a vanity publisher who is preying on writer’s dreams. Break that contract as soon as it is legally feasible to do so.
Next time you look at a contract for services to a writer, ask yourself whether or not you are giving them publishing rights, and if so, are they taking the risk as well as the rewards for doing so, or are you giving it to them for free by giving them part of the reward while you take all the risk? A real publisher, traditional or small, will take all the financial risk while also getting some of the reward. For obvious reasons, you will want to avoid taking all the financial risk while giving away any of your rights and/or rewards of your work.
Very succinct definition of the terms — well done!
Good summary of the differences, but what always puzzles me is why some companies that are effectively distributors – such as Smashwords and Lulu and Amazon – will basically label themselves as the publisher for your book. Is it all about who owns the ISBN, or are there other things an author should be wary of – what exactly could one be giving away by letting them have the right to be the publisher? Effectively most self-published authors will find themselves in the situation where the ‘official’ publisher of their book is one or several of these companies.
Smashwords doesn’t really *require* you to do that. Like, one of the acceptable phrases to put on the title page for a publisher is: “Published by Ethereal Press at Smashwords.” And they allow you to use or purchase your own ISBN which shows you as the publisher. But if you get their free ISBN, it will show them as the publisher. Being able to buy in bulk under one “publisher” name allows them to buy the ISBNs for real cheap and offer them free.
But it should be noted you are not giving them any rights when you do that. They aren’t officially the publisher, you are. You aren’t signing any contract with them that locks you into saying Smashwords is the publisher of your book. The only thing you are really giving away is when it shows up on B&N or any of the channels, their page will show “Smashwords” as the publisher, if you use their free ISBN. If you don’t want that, buy the one they offer or go to Broker and buy your own set (last I looked, $250.00 for 25, $10.00 a piece). So the main thing you lose is identification, and perhaps the prestige of having an official publisher name there instead of a generic one.
Thanks for clarifying – I guess it’s just down to the practicalities of getting an ISBN.
A point that would have been good to clarify in the article that Dean Wesley Smith touches on in his recent blog post:
http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?p=4328
Is the difference between a distributor like Smashwords and a publisher. With a publisher, you are actually giving them a copyright permission for a specified amount of time, per contract, and an exclusive one at that. IOW, you are giving them, in return for publishing the book and all that entails, part ownership for a length of time in the copyright to be the publisher.
A distributor, however, you are giving a discount on a particular book either when they acquire it (hard and paperbacks) or when they sell it (ebooks, consignments). So, using Smashwords as an example, the books I have in there gives them permission to distribute my books to their own and several sales channels, and when a book sales, I give them a discount on the book so they make some money off the sale as well. But I can, at any time, without breaking the contract, take my books out of Smashwords. Nor is Smashwords the only place I can sell them. I can also sell them at Amazon, my own bookstore, or anywhere else that I want. Smashwords doesn’t own or have any copyright on my books other than to sell them. I’m not locked into a 10 year contract with them to exclusively sell my books. Which is why though on the books I have on there, though on Kobo’s site it will say the publisher is Smashwords because of the ISBN link, they are not a publisher. It is the contract terms that would turn them into a publisher, if they gained some of the rights described above. But they don’t, so they are a distributor.
So a valid distributor isn’t going to have contract/agreement clauses that acquire your copyrights exclusively for a period of time. They will only deal on a book sell by book sell type basis. Also they don’t vet books. So you can see how some “self-publish” services can look like a self-publish service on the outside, but be acquiring your copyright permissions like a publisher. And that is the essence when it is not a good deal for the author.