Since 2013, when Australasian Christian Writers (ACW) was born and we started our original blog at Blogspot (Blogger), we have stood firm in our strong belief that vanity publishing—sometimes called assisted self publishing, hybrid publishing, partner publishing, pay-to-play publishing—is a terrible deal for authors.
In recent years vanity publishing has evolved to specifically target independent authors who are looking for assistance to publish their books.
The vanity publishers offer self publishing packages aka. book publishing packages that are ridiculously expensive when compared to DIY or hiring freelancers and… THEY DON’T INCLUDE EDITING.
Don’t fall for their sales pitch that can sound good until you dig deeper and do your research. Most vanity publishers don’t want to contract publishing rights precisely because book selling is a secondary consideration.
The AUTHOR is the vanity publisher’s CUSTOMER and they want to maximise their profit from selling an expensive publishing package to the author.
It’s the author who’s paying for the vanity publisher’s plush office space and salaries. Everyone except the author—who created the book content—is getting paid.
Don’t believe the lies being spread that traditional publishing is old fashioned and dying. Traditional publishing offers authors a publishing path where the AUTHOR DOES NOT PAY THE PUBLISHER any money to publish their book.
In traditional publishing MONEY flows from the PUBLISHER to the AUTHOR from royalties from book sales OR advances on future book sales royalties.
Below are a list of links to posts on our blog that discuss publishing paths in more detail. Please do your research and learn how the publishing industry works before choosing a publishing path.
There are only TWO publishing paths that potentially offer a good deal for authors:
- Traditional Publishing
- Independent Publishing – where authors hire contractors for specific work eg. editors, cover designers.
Thank you, Narelle. This warning cannot be issued often enough. Sadly, it is writers who do not have the protection of belonging to a writers’ group who are most vulnerable to these people.
Hi Julia, The writers group that operates like a trade union for authors—and goes into bat for their members—is ALLi (Alliance of Indie Authors).
I’m really disappointed to see that there are many writing groups and writing organisations that are platforming and effectively endorsing vanity publishing companies and vanity junk marketing.
A writing group should have leaders who stand up for the best interests of their members. Writers want to trust their group leaders to have their best interests at heart.
When a writing organisation ‘sells out’ their members and endorses vanity publishing via partner sponsorships etc. that’s a walk away point from my perspective.
Thanks for posting about this again. I think it needs to be readdressed frequently.
Hi Dienece, You’re welcome. I hope writers will read this post—and all the links to previous ACW blog posts by Iola Goulton and Christine Dillon—and share this post with their writing friends.
Education is key for assisting new writers and helping them to make informed decisions that are in their best interests.
There is sadly a lot of false information being spread by untrustworthy people.