James Barclay

[Drizzt]

We've never broached the subject on the forum, so I thought I would. I'd love to hear our latest Msc's thoughts, this should be their area!

What do we all think of vanity publishing and self publishing? Yes, in an ideal world, we'd all love to be the darling of the likes of Orbit etc; what if we're not?

Vanity and Self publishing have always something of a bad press. Well, in the case of Vanity, it's more like the publishers involved enjoy a bad reputation because of how they operate.

From what I've seen, Self Published books, generally, are frowned upon because many believe if a book is good enough to be published by a 'proper' publisher then it will be. But what if you don't want that? What if all you want to see is a copy of your own book, good or bad, on your shelf? Yes this will cost you money, but if all someone wants is to see a book in print, is it wrong to venture down this route?

As for Vanity, well, this is more controversial and is becoming moreso with the advent of new publishers who seem to flirt with the idea but can't quite be counted as a vanity publisher in the strict definition of the concept. But! Is it such a bad thing? Is there something wrong with a company offering a wouldbe writer another path into publishing, albeit a (highly likely) limited and short one?

Or should we all resist temptation and continue to subject ourselves to rejection letter after rejection letter? If we do decide to venture down one path, which is the best?

Personally, from a business point of view, I cannot fault Vanity publishers. Ethically I find them deplorable but, wearing my business head, they have a customer base from which they can make money - more fool them if they choose not to cash in, so long as they make it clear that they ARE Vanity. So many don't and, as a result, so many budding writers are ripped off and conned. It's these con artists I'd love to see culled. The ones who do openly say they are what they are, fair enough - more fool the writer should they find themselves surprised at what happens. Or, more to the point, doesn't.

As for Self publishing... so long as the writer knows what they're doing and is resigned to the massively probable outcome of making a large loss in money, and you're still ok with it, then go for it. Others, such as Raven Dane, venture down this route because of past experience with more mainstream routes and, whether by luck or by endeavour, do well. Ish.

The purist in me says that any writer worth their salt should wait to be published 'properly' by a professional outfit. The realist in me forcesw me to wonder whether I'd feel the same after years of rejection, or poor experiences with a 'proper' publishing house, and so on.

What say the rest of us?
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Pagan Music

[Alia]

Well, I can talk about self-publishing, but not from the UK point of view. Here, where I live, self-publishing in s-f and fantasy has a veeery bad press. And not without a reason. Over the last 5-10 years there appeared here a number of new publishing houses, usually rather small, that focus on publishing our own fantasy and s-f writers, leaving translations from English to other, bigger publishers. And these small publishers eagerly accept debuts, if only they are good enough. Moreover, these publishers have professional copy-editors, proof-readers, and so on. So it's not unusual to here stories like: "Well, I wrote this fantasy novel based on Viking sagas, sent it to one publisher, got no answer, so I sent it to another, and they told me to rewrite some of it, and look, here it is. My novel".
Whereas self-published books fall into two main categories - kids with rich parents and embittered wannabe writers rejected by everyone. Kids usually do not even think of sending their novels anywhere - dad is rich and can publish his son's or daughter's work. I've seen such a novel recently. The girl (she was 13 when she wrote it) has a lot of potential and I really look forward to seeing her more mature works, but what her father published is rather childish and easily recognizable as inspired by RA Salvatore (with main character being a dark elven outsider).
On the other hand, the ones rejected by everyone... It's really awful. Because hiring an editor, a proof-reader, a DTP professional and a cover artist is costly, all these things are done by the author themself or by their friends. And as a result we get a book with a horrible cover and difficult to read (if you do typesetting in Word, the results are usually really bad). And if you try to read it, you get sentences with grammar errors, or ones that make no sense, or ones that set your teeth on edge.
The result is - most self-published novels are here sources of joy to numerous Internet-based critics, who quote the juiciest sentences and make everyone else burst with laughter. But seriously, I haven't seen a decent self-published novel here, and I've seen quite a few.

[Deornoth]

It's a real grey area, check This out for one of the potential pitfalls...
I have to agree with Drizzt in the sense that the whole Vanity/Print on Demand thing isn't necessarily a bad thing so long as you know what you're getting yourself into. I've heard of some established authors who use PoD as a way of making their older works available to the general public (not a bad thing!)
If I was ever going to get published though, I have to say I'd go down the old tried and tested 'submission/get loads of rejections' route...
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Graeme's Fantasy Book Review

Does exactly what it says on the tin!

[Wulfa_Coldheart]

Well we did look at this during my course and I have read a few self-published books. We didn?t really look at it in an editorial or business point of view, more from the production side of things. Self-published books are usual done via a print-on-demand method and the quality, while good, is no were near the same as modern mass market paperbacks.

As already said within this topic, if an author has been unable to get a publishing deal via all the many small and large specialist publishers out there you have to wonder if the book is all that good. I?ve never read any fantasy self-published books, only a series of horror ones lent to me by a family member. I wasn?t overly impressed with the books themselves. When I saw the books I knew they had been published by a print-on-demand printer and therefore self-published, I did try to keep an open mind but I do think this knowledge affected my opinion of the books.

The author of these books claims that he chose to self-publish the books, which is something I find mildly odd. Some authors claim it is because they have been rejected, if they have been rejected it may have been due to the poor quality of the writing or it may be because the editor, who really does know the market, doesn?t think there is the audience for the book and so therefore isn?t a profit making project. Publishing isn?t a charity.

I think the key problem is there is no real editorial process. Even if the author hires a professional freelance copy editor and a proof reader, they aren?t going to get the critical feedback from the commissioning editor.

Print-on-demand can be used to keep books in print or, as suggested, re-release older titles that are out of print.

There are some cases for self-publishing/vanity publishing. With non-fiction books, I think there is a need for it. Non-fiction, academic books are much more suitable for self-publishing as many aren?t suitable for long print runs as there is only a small market of them. I myself used a couple of self-published books during my publishing course and for my dissertation as the subject matters aren?t attractive enough for publishers due to the small size of the possible market, but without these books I?d have been in a pickle!

I do think there is likely to be a quality issue in regards to self-published fiction titles, particularly in genre fiction.

As for vanity publishing? I myself was thinking of publishing my dissertation via print-on-demand methods, just for the sake of saying I?m a published author!
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"You know what Jack Burton always says... what the hell?"

[OLD NEW GUY]

Great topic this one...when does small publishing become vanity press is another one!!

EG: we all know about Libros who published Robs book, they are a new small press, they also own a vanity press small cherry...i dont think they should have the same people working on both sides of the business but that a personal opinion, thought they have never asked me to point anyone at the vanity press.
My concern with really small press is the lack of marketing, without some directed and intelligent marketing then a great book can sit and collect dust, i have read several of Libros book releases and theya re from good to not bad...but most people will never know about them.

Word of mouth is a good way to push these...if you are hitting a wide forum audience...but then another of small press issues occur POD (print on demand) printing, some will not wait for the book and others will not pay the cost, robs book was not a chep title...so one quick argument i would have is this

Should we (myself and rob) have gone down the Lulu (or other) self publishing angle? the only value added to the book by libros was some editing...we advertised it, we pushed it and we could have got it on the market for a few pounds less than Libros and thus maybe sold more copies of the book.

So quick question: (imagine you dont know rob)
Would you be more likely to buy the book as published by Libros (small press)? or a self published book thats cheaper?

[Drizzt]

It's very difficult to buy a book without knowing about the book first and without any marketing, people simply wouldn't do it. The Libros marketing is shambolic - I have no idea about any other books published by them - but the problem is the same is true of many SP/POD/VP outfits. It's not in their best interest to spend money on advertising and marketing as they make their money from the author so in essence it's then down to the author to push their own work which is nigh impossible as most magazines such as SFX etc, review websites and so forth won't touch an unsolicited manuscript so you're left with almost 'underground' magazines which flit about on the edges of people's attention.

The internet, mainly with the likes of Facebook and Myspace, over the last few years or so has become a massive tool used by people to push their own stuff and although those writers I know who have gone down this route have enjoyed a little success through it, they're still relatively unknown and continue to struggle on.

Blogging websites are now ten-a penny so it's tricky to know which ones to aim for as the goos ones are being hit all the time by big publishing houses anyway.

Honestly, regardless of whether it's Libros or Lulu or Discovered Authors or whoever... unless the company actually is prepared to invest its own money in marketing the book to muppets like me to get me to buy the book then the book is doomed to be a 'maybe'. Beyond conventions, oddball underground fanzines, blogging sites and the Myspaces of this world, there's not much else agents or authors can do - unless you're prepared to really go the extra mile and do a Paolini and effectively wander the streets handing out free books to drum up interest!
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Pagan Music

[Deornoth]

I reviewed a 'Print on Demand' book ('The Charon Covenant') on my blog, a book that I actually gave up on not just because of the story (although that wasn't great) but also because of the really bad editing job that had been done by the publishers. For a start there were spelling mistakes that a schoolchild would be ashamed of ('no' does not mean the same thing as 'know'). Secondly the text had been printed so that it was really difficult to tell when the story moved to a different location (you normally get a blank space in between chunks of text).
Now, I know hardly anything about publishing but if I was a publisher I wouldn't let a book go out in a state like that. From what I understand of 'Print on Demand' the onus is on the author to do the editing but even so, surely the publisher's name is now attached to this book and that wouldn't make them look good...
Why would a publisher release a book that could give prospective customers the message that their work wouldn't receive a particularly high level of care and attention?
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Graeme's Fantasy Book Review

Does exactly what it says on the tin!

[OLD NEW GUY]

you would think that never happens with a big house...but Orion...yup them guys sent out an advance copy of Tyrant by Christian Cameron and it riddled with spelling grammer and context errors, its a really good story, but as a reviewer i almost gave up, there were words with numbers (EG: wh9en) in them and thats just really really bad.

So its not just POD that suffers with this...is the quality of publishing being hit by the very very tight profit margins...and is it a major fault of their own making by paying a fortune for the next celeb tripe!!

[Alia]

Man, I could tell a whole story about one of the biggest fantasy and s-f publishers over here, who at one point decided to publish original novels and translations with no editing whatsoever (at least that's what it seemed to me). A publisher's representative, when asked at a convention, said something contemptuous, like "Well, people will buy it anyway." And yet, sometime later they suddenly decided that editing is necessary, so perhaps people didn't buy it, regardless of the quality.

[Drizzt]

Unfortunately the buyers at publishers have to buy in what will sell and if there is a 'hot' item they need to focus on it to maximise the revenue. It's a business and they have mortgages to pay... the sad fact is a lot of these celeb books sell well and so the publishers would be mad not to sell them.

But, still, the big boys still do put out a better and more professionally accomplished product and on a far bigger scale than the POD/SP/VP guys. And, most importantly, they market the book.
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Pagan Music

[OLD NEW GUY]

Yup i think the success or not comes down to Marketing...if you do it...it sells...if you dont...forget it!!