You used to know right where you were with vanity publishers. They charged an extortionate amount to print a few copies of your unedited book and left you to do all the selling. That upfront charge was the way to spot them: no reputable publisher charges its authors anything. Eventually, most writers got wise to…
Tag Archive: cooperative publishing
Why Do Vanity Publishers Sell To Writers, Not Readers?
It’s widely accepted in the publishing industry that the difference between a vanity publisher and a mainstream, commercial publisher is that the former makes most of its money selling books back to its writers, while the latter makes its money selling books on to new readers: but why is this the case and why is…
Tainted By Association
A little while ago I read a post on the Authonomy message board in which information was requested about a particular London-based publisher. Was it a legitimate publishing house? I did a little digging and realised I’d already checked out the same publisher for someone on the Absolute Write message board last summer. On reading…
Where Books Are Sold
Most books are still sold in real, physical bookshops and not online, despite claims to the contrary by many of the vanity presses and self-publishing services. There are exceptions: few textbooks ever make it into bookshops and are instead sold direct from the publisher to the end-user, sometimes through the university or school. Few self-published…
When Mainstream Publishers Link With Self-Publishing Services
For years I’ve been advising writers that while self-publishing can sometimes be a route to success, only the very lucky, capable few manage to achieve it: and that unless there are exceptional circumstances surrounding their books, such as an easily-accessible niche market or their own brilliant marketing skills, they’d be better off pursuing mainstream publication…
Sales Statistics
There’s a very useful analysis of self-publishing via the POD route on the Writer Beware website. While this extract discusses sales statistics, the complete article is far more extensive and essential reading for everyone who is considering self-publishing their work. Sales Statistics Despite some highly publicized successes, the average book from a POD service sells…
The Big Question About Self Publishing Successes
If self-publishing is such a brilliant thing for a writer to do, why is it that most of the writers who are said to have achieved true success through self-publishing have only done so after their books have been republished by a mainstream publisher?
The Bookseller Blog: How Self-Publishing Really Works
I have another piece up on The Bookseller blog today called “How Self-Publishing Really Works” (catchy title, don’t you think?), in which I discuss the differences between self-publishing and vanity publishing. I’ll be posting something similar here in a week or two but I’d really like it if you’d comment over at The Bookseller in…
Reverse-End Vanity Publishing
There are vanity publishers out there which insist that they are not vanity publishers because they don’t charge their writers anything for publication. PublishAmerica, a notorious reverse vanity publisher, even pays its authors a token advance of one dollar in an attempt to signify its good intent. As is so often the case, all is…
How Not To Sell To Book Shops
Any self-published authors who intend to sell their books direct into bookshops would do well to read this post from the Fidra blog, which tells everything you need to know about how NOT to do it. There’s also a sequel to it, in which a better strategy is revealed, which will be useful to all…
YouWriteOn and Arts Council England: What's The Connection?
There’s a lot of confusion over who runs YouWriteOn, and how it’s related to Arts Council England. People seem to think that YouWriteOn is run by Arts Council England, organised by Arts Council England, or part of Arts Council England in some other nebulous way, but this is not the case: YouWriteOn’s only apparent connection…
Legal Deposit
All publishers have a legal obligation to provide at least one copy of each of their publications to the Legal Deposit Office of the British Library. This obligation includes all books and periodicals which are published or made available in the United Kingdom, but excludes internal reports, examination papers, local transport timetables, appointment diaries, wall…
YouWriteOn’s Free Publishing Offer: An Update
Last autumn, YouWriteOn’s “free publishing deal” attracted a lot of attention from writers and industry watchdogs. It was discussed on several writers’ message boards; Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware blogged about it; and so did I. The deeply sceptical felt that it was at best an ill-thought-out scheme or at worst, a cynical vanity publishing…
Vanity Publishing vs Self-Publishing
It is difficult to separate vanity publishing from self-publishing. Where do you draw the line between the two? Vanity publishers often insist that what they offer is serviced self-publishing. For a fee (often a high one) they offer services like editing, typesetting and design: the problem is that there are some very useful self-publishing service…
Subsidy And Cooperative Publishing
It’s easy to understand how naïve writers are sometimes parted from their cash. Times are hard. This we know. So, when a publisher claims that print sales are not what they were, and that most publishers are struggling just to stay afloat, it’s easy to stretch that into believing that publishers could bring out just…