Vanity Publishing
This is an excellent site, full of good advice. It's worth knowing that with so many sites warning against subsidy publishers the smart ones have adjusted their working practices to put hopeful authors off the scent. Many don't advertise for authors in the usual way, many don't reply immediately with praise for the initial submission, but get back to the writer a month or so later to request the full ms. Then it may be six months before they send you a contract. Joy! You read carefully, but of course there's a catch - this will be a 'joint venture', as this is a literary rather than a commercial novel, and 'publishing is 'accountancy led these days, therefore only the large companies can afford to pay an advance or bear the whole cost themselves.' They mix the truth with deception so cleverly that it's easy to be taken in. They have addresses in Bloomsbury and other prestigious publishing areas, and their guidelines state:
Do not telephone or call the office as we are very busy at all times... The truth is that there is no office at the address given, it's just a commercially run postal address. Their company names change every couple of years or so to make things difficult for anyone thinking of suing them for misrepresenting themselves and lack of consideration in not fulfilling their obligation to market the book. Some actively resist sales of the books published - it's too much trouble and they've already made their money from the author. In any case there is no edition to sell, only the few books they've had printed POD as author copies. Their contracts state that an author should request the publisher's permission to promote the book, then they refuse that permission, pointing out that that is the publisher's job. Fine if they actually did any promotion, but they don't. They offer the books as a discount to the author but charge postage to bring the price up to retail level, and when the author complains they advise him/her to order the books through a bookshop. Their discount to booksellers is so low that no bookseller would stock the book anyway. A warning light should come on if you see a footnote under a pubisher's entry in
The Writers' Handbook that says; 'May ask authors to contribute towards costs of publication.' For 'may' read 'will'.
There are subsidy publishers who are upfront in detailing the services they provide and who actually print an edition and market the books after first advising the author that it's unlikely that they'll sell enough books to cover their costs, but these are few and far between.
Nell.
<Added>It's also worth noting that some have a FAQ page in which they state something like this:
Q. Do we ask authors to contribute to the cost of publishing their book?
A. No.
So how can you tell? The bottom line is that if you're asked for money for anything at all from a publisher, be it help with advertising or editing costs - whatever - it's likely that you're dealing with a subsidy/vanity publisher in disguise.
<Added>And get expert advice on any contract before signing.
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