Hi all!
As promised, this week's blog post is about vanity publishers.
First off, what is a vanity publisher?
A vanity publisher is a publishing house where authors pay a high fee to get their book published. Unlike hybrid publishers, they do not give you a high quality product in return or help with marketing. Many vanity publishers attempt to disguise themselves as hybrid publishers, but don't do a good job of doing so.
Here are a few ways you can spot a vanity publisher:
They charge extremely high fees.
Most will charge in the thousands to produce your book. This is supposed to cover the costs of editing, marketing, printing and distribution. However, most of the books come out as low quality and difficult to read.
When you Google their names, hundreds of bad reviews come up.
Look at what other authors have to say. Have they received a horrible book in return for a £4000 fee? Run. These people are not trying to destroy a legitimate business, they are warning others against making the same mistakes.
You pay thousands for their logo to be slapped on your book.
That's it. They don't pay for anything. You simply give them money to have their logo on your book for 'exposure' to their fan base. This is a scam, you will pay for everything else as well. You're basically a self publisher who sunk thousands into a company who let you slap their image on your cover. Not worth it.
Their other books are poor quality.
If other authors are left with a shoddy book, so will you. They will pay as little as possible to editors and cover designers, so don't expect your book to look professional.
They follow a lot of people on social media but very few follow back.
You can tell when a vanity publisher is looking for new authors as they might go on a following spree to make more people notice their business.
They approach you directly to submit.
You might get a message from them telling you that they're interested in your project and would like you to submit. But how do they know your project is right for them? They don't! They're just preying on authors who want to achieve their dream of publishing.
There's little, or no, criteria for submitting.
Anything goes, from picture books to erotica. Many publishing houses focus on a few genres and try not to mix the age ranges inappropriately. If they accept anything and everything in one department, there's a high chance they'll take anything they can get for money.
No one seems to get rejected by them.
Everyone who submits gets accepted. Strange, huh? The more clients they accept, the more money they make. They're highly unlikely to turn potential clients away.
They accept you, then send a contract asking for money.
Publishers do not accept money from authors to publish books. The author only pays for their own marketing, unless they're going down the hybrid route.
They publish a lot of books, but don't sell many.
Why would they need to? They've taken your money, they don't need to actually well books to make a profit, they just charge their clients.
Their books aren't in book shops.
If you can't find any of their titles in book shops despite the claims that they distribute to them, they don't distribute. Ask the shop owner. Have they heard of the publishing house? Have they ever stocked any of their books?
When pressed for more information, they get defensive.
If you ask a few questions about any queries you have that might shine them in a bad light, they'll get defensive or stop talking to you completely.
Their website is under another business name.
This means that they have changed the name of their business. It's usually a way of them hiding the fact that their previous name was a vanity, so they think that a change of them might trick new clients. Make sure to check online if they've changed their name for a legitimate reason.
That's it for this week! Feel free to share any stories you have about vanity publishers in the comments!