Vanity publishing is not new. It’s been mentioned in the newspapers since 1941. It also does not imply the book is bad. Traditional publishers do not have a one hundred percent record for picking winners. It took them about ten years to work out romance, including erotic romance, is actually a top seller.
What vanity publishing means is that the primary audience for the book is the author. The author pays for everything—editing, cover art, ISBNs, formatting, printing, publishing, marketing. The vanity publisher then pays their staff or contractors who do the work.
The difference between self publishing, or independent publishing, and vanity publishing, is that with self publishing the author controls the decision making. She chooses her own editor, cover artist, formatter, marketing firm etc. She then pays them for their work and it’s the author who chooses when and where her book will be for sale.
Thus the costs may be very similar for vanity publishing and independent publishing, but with vanity publishing she is just a client, one of many, with minimal or zero control.
Vanity publishing can be the right choice for authors who don’t wish to use a more traditional publisher but don’t have the confidence or experience to self publish.
Unfortunately it may also attract authors who don’t want their book edited and won’t listen to professional advice about cover art, font sizes and formatting.
If you want your book read and loved as much as you love it, the book needs to be free of obvious grammatical, spelling and typographical errors, head hopping and plot holes.
The method the author chooses to use to ensure a polished product hits the shelves is her choice.
Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com
Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.
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