Self-Publish - Is it worth it? - Part 3 of 3

A vanity press can not only ruin your publishing dream but also leave you broke in the process. And to top that, a vanity press can make you hostage to their company when it comes to you not owning your own files. So how vain are you?
How desperate are you to put your book out there and become a successful children´s book author?

So what is “vanity press”?
Well, it´s a pejorative term for those types of “publishing” companies that emerged when many people's desire to self-publish became a market for them to prey on. Attracted with promises of – exposure- to say the least and – overnight success- in many cases.
Things and catch phrases are a lot more toned down nowadays, but when the first companies arrived on the internet, if you were an author wanting to find an alternative way of publishing your book, you could really think any one of these companies could put you in the spotlight and make you a really well-known and established author, like the real ones. Better yet, they all promised to do that without you having to go through the traditional route of desperation, rejection, and disappointment that people like Stephen King had to go through before the internet was invented, and there was no vanity press.

You can recognise a vanity press company by the fact that they all tell you that you can “publish” your book for free. They will give you your own store on their site, and then you upload your book, and nothing happens in sales.
Usually, the only sales you make are when you buy your own book or when your friends and mum get a copy.
This is the more traditional print-on-demand side of these companies. You have your book “published.” A copy will only be printed when someone orders your book from your store, and that´s it. The company does not promote your book at all, and so if you´re one of those authors who expect to spend your days just writing instead of putting at least 90% of your daily creative time on doing your own self-marketing, you can forget fame and fortune, and you can forget sales because nobody will visit your shop because nobody will know that you exist.

You can order yourself a copy of your book, and generally, the print quality is actually really good; many times, awesome, really, and so you stare at the “published” result of your work with pride. You should be. If you actually have a good book, and you use a print-on-demand service, and you create a really good design overall, you should end up with a great-looking book that will feel as professional as any other.
But that´s it.
Only you will likely see your work when you self-publish through a vanity press. It´s like steering yourself in a mirror.
Therefore, – “Vanity Press”.

But if you think that´s bad, you haven´t seen anything yet.
In truth, there is nothing wrong with vanity press companies in the right context. They are really capable of delivering a good product from your work (if you have a professional-looking graphic design, you will not look self-published), and they also provide you with a free online store and a few good free tools to promote it yourself.
So what´s the problem then?

The dark side of vanity press sites is revealed when you are enticed to actually pay them for their “publishing packages,” and there are lots of different options out there, each with different characteristics, objectives, scope, and, of course, price.
I´m not going to detail everything here for that reason but let´s just say that if you really want to spend a lot of money to publish your book, they of course will charge you (a lot) for their graphic services if you need help with designing your book, they will charge you for different types of marketing packages also and some companies even use to have something like almost a non-official illustration service option where I´m sure they commissioned artists and illustrators like me for original cover artwork and even full interior book illustrations; for example for children books.

Some vanity press companies were pointed to make you believe that you just need to show up with your original text, your credit card ready and they will do the rest because – they – have the ability to put your book under the spotlight, either by charging you for additional distribution packages or charging you double and triple for publicity you could do yourself on Add Words if you knew how.

The dark side of vanity press companies is in the way they prey on the lack of knowledge of authors who just want to have their book “published”. Of course, it´s business as legit as any other, but it´s the mostly overinflated prices for those “special publishing packages” that make everything sound so … sleazy, sometimes. We can even sense the slime when we look at some of the options put out there promising the world to each and every author that is willing to spend sometimes not just a couple of thousand dollars but a lot, lot, LOT more trusting that on the other side there will be “an editor” and “a publisher” that actually will care or believe in their work beyond of how much is the limit on your credit card.

I´ve worked for a couple of vanity press companies since I started illustrating online. But not for long. Once I understood what was happening in the shadows of the places where I was working, I just got out. I actually have to thank many of their (or “my”) clients there for the eye-opening experience at a time when I was just trying to find my first job online.
The vanity press companies I worked for targeted specifically self-published children's book authors. They had all the regular offers for printing and selling your book, and on top of that, they offered illustration services.
They, of course, prevented direct contact between the client and the illustrator, and it was in three of these situations (in different places) that I started to understand how that whole thing worked.

Even though we could not communicate directly and freely without having the vanity press company controlling what message content would go through or not to both sides, some of “my illustration clients” managed to reach out to me through Google search, and they started to pose me some questions related to their doubts and concerns about the whole creative process. Among many things, we soon discovered that, for example, one of my clients was charged around $12.500 for the illustrations alone as part of an “illustration package” for a children´s book project, and was told the value was based on my professional rates rather than their own fee for the “representation” service.
In reality, when I was approached by the company to work on that project, they said it would be a great opportunity for me, as I was just getting started in this online thing, if I did this book for them. The only catch was that the children's book offer was supposed to be for a very small side project at the company, and the client could not afford to spend much on artwork. Even so, after the company deducted their fees, I would still get around $750 for my illustrations. And if I were accepted to work on that book, I would also get some good exposure.
And of course, it was promised that if I did that, the company would then take me on for more expensive projects where I could make some real money.

As I was still doing this online illustration thing as a part-time job, trying to put my name out there without much knowledge of how to go about it in these early internet days, and because I still had my main illustration/design work here in my country, I accepted the project, actually believing I was really working for a small budget book. After all, I was finally getting work from a real company out there, and so this lack of transparency never crossed my mind in those days.
It was only when “their” client contacted me in private that we both understood someone was really spending a ton of money on “packages” and the person was beyond chocked that I actually didn´t have asked for $12.500 in illustration fee, but I was just getting $750 out of the money paid to the company for that objective.
Then I learned that there was other concerns about the other “marketing or publishing packages” the client had also payed for on top of the “illustration package” and to cut this story short, the client simply gave up on the project, ( recovered about half of what had spent due to some – guarantee – clause somewhere in the contract ) but to my knowledge this person simply quit on trying to becoming an author.

This is what I mean when I say a vanity press can really kill your dream if you go into this field and pick a really bad one. Maybe there´s some really good ones out there that can get you good publishing results, but even in the marketing department I don´t know of anyone that has used a vanity press company, payed a ton of money to publish a book and then ended up selling books after the first couple of weeks where the vanity press really tries to pretend it cares about the client´s payed for marketing needs. After a few days, when something really feels it´s happening with your book, what usually happens is that an author who ends up spending a ton of money through a vanity press soon realises that that money should have been a lot better spent if that person had invested in online ads herself instead of relying on a vanity press company.

Then there´s the “hostage” aspect of things, too.
99% of people, when they pay for a work, expect to own it, but if you go into a vanity press company, beware of what you´re allowed to get.
I had a client for whom I did the book illustrations, and those were then given to a vanity press company to publish the final book and create the graphic design, which, despite many quality issues, still managed to put the book out there. Of course, there are not many results from their “marketing package” at all. And let´s not even mention the other “design issues” that came out of that insane client-company relationship after a ton of money was spent.
Recently this person found a really good publishing alternative but needed the original files which the vanity press company kept and then the company refused to release the files…not claiming exactly they own them, but doing everything they could not to release the print ready pdfs, either by not replying to emails, presenting a ton of bureaucracy or doing everything you can think of not to allow access to what the client originally payed for.
The situation was actually very similar to what happened to this person here at the same company, so when there´s smoke, there must be fire. Read it and form your own conclusions.

So, overall, should you go with a vanity press to have your book printed?
As I said, there´s no harm in using their print-on-demand services if you don´t mind their overpriced printing costs and shop fees.
You can get your nice online store, and if you do your market right, you can actually sell a bunch of books every month for as long as you know how to promote your book. As I mentioned, keep in mind that the print-on-demand system will take most of what you can make on your cover price; for example, if you´re lucky, you can get about $2 out of a $15 cover-priced book you publish. But this is how POD, or print-on-demand, makes money, so you either accept the rules or not.
And, as I said, the good side of all this is that you can actually start putting your work out there. I would rather have one book of mine published by a vanity press print-on-demand online shop than ten books forgotten in a drawer forever.

Take advantage of the positive things the vanity shop print-on-demand can do for you in terms of exposure, but I would never pay any of them for any of their “publishing packages” if I were you.

And, as I said in another post, if you are really serious about becoming an author, there are other ways to self-publish the book that give you more control. They are expensive because you will have to buy copies of your book in bulk and learn to navigate the distribution and marketing stuff yourself; but if you do that with money you had putt away to get a “publishing package” from a vanity press instead, you can bet in the long run you will get a lot more better results than if you were scammed by those fake “publishers” and you´ll totally make sure you own all your files too.

Authors are becoming so aware of all this that there is even a new term for “vanity press”; trying to escape the bad hype, many publishing options out there are now presenting themselves as “hybrid publishers”, which, in essence, in most cases, are just vanity press companies in disguise, so beware of that too.
In short, if you want to be safe, publish your book yourself, learn how to paginate, hire a cool illustrator and/or a graphic designer, and use the money you would pay a vanity press to print your books anywhere in the world. Then sell them yourself.

Not easy, you´ll not become the overnight author sensation vanity press promises you´re gonna be, but take your time and don´t worry. If you have a good product, backed by quality work, chances are you will get noticed. Just don´t be in a rush.