Talk:Vanity press

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[edit] Library Controversy

I'm interested how the vanity press can charge for copies if they are not even bound. Can anyone give any source on this? How common is this problem? --Daniel C. Boyer 18:21, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

There is a discussion of that phenomenon in Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. I don't remember the details, but I think that the publisher pretends to market copies to libraries etc..., but doesn't, and saves money by not even finishing to bind them. David.Monniaux 16:08, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
In some cases librarians will reluctantly accept a vanity publication coming from somebody with the political power to close down the library or from somebody who makes regular contributions of extremely large amounts of money to the library budget. Other librarians will choose to resign rather than accept such publications.

These are some rather extreme claims. Evidence? --203.206.52.13 06:55, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Extreme? On the contrary, we are talking about frequent occurences in small towns with a small library and only one professional librarian holding the fort. There are stories about this in books dealing with library acquisitions methods. And of course, the Library Journal, which is the main publication of the A.L.A., (the American Library Association) has chronicled the phenomenon for sevral generations. When we do our master's in Library Science we have a special course just on the acquisition of materials. One of the main goals of an acquisition policy (but not the only one) is to establlish solid grounds for refusing unwanted gifts. When this crucial policy is flouted, by imposing vanity books or other books (old books usually) which we know by experince that the library patrons will not be interested in reading, the very basis of the collection is imperiled. Of course, the wise librarian will start looking for a job elsewhere, find one, and after that resign while stating as a basis the flouting of reckognized principles in the field of Library and Information Science. --AlainV 13:50, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Be that as it may, you've yet to provide any evidence, only generic references to "small towns" and "some librarians." A citation to a specific issue of the Library Journal to substantiate your claims would be helpful. You present a false dichotomy of librarians either begrudgingly accepting such work on pain of dispossession or resigning in protest. There is a third possibility: the librarian takes the book knowing no one else will ever read it but attended by no rancor. This selective reporting should be indicative of POV problems. Lastly the collections problems presented by donations of marginal works (vanity published or otherwise) belongs more properly to an article on library science. — 207.24.168.10 05:38, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

In retrospect I see how it might seem like a dichotomy when in fact there are more than two and even more than three courses of action. I realise now that I have been meaning to give a less anecdotal slant to this and to integrate this in an Acquisitions process article for too many months now. I have removed it from the Vanity press article since it appears in the talk page. There should be a link to a selection of materials article (or Library acquisitions article) but I am still stuck on how to phrase it or how to start it off. --AlainV 16:20, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merge and Cleanup

I just merged Vanity publisher into Vanity press. The latter needs a lot of cleanup. Basically it needs sorting into various sub-heading so that the information is organissed. It could probably stand to be trimmed a little too--XmarkX 07:09, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes, still seems repetitive. Eclecticos 06:01, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] $50 per book!

I know this is barely relevant to vanity presses or even to wikipedia, but I was very suprised to see this figure quoted for the processing of a book for a library. I just don't see how it could possibly cost that much. What is involved?

Entering the book into the computer system, making a label and barcode, stamping the book, laminating (possibly) and putting the book in the shelves. Am I missing anything? That couldn't possibly take more than 15 minutes per book at the most. What is driving the cost up so high?

My thoughts also, having worked in a library for a few months recently. Though there were a few extended discussions on how to classify particular niche or cross-category items between the senior staff, processing most books (at the time I took the post, they had just received a large delivery, and took a couple more during my tenure) was a rapid and straightforward affair. Look up the appropriate dewey code (not much more involved than actually looking for a book to read) or see if it had been pre-supplied with one (common) IF it was reference, or check the author name and produce a typewritten spine label appropriately; insert selfadhesive loan stamp label, security alarm strip and serial asset ID barcode; add a few possession rubber-stamps throughout the pages and on the page-edges; plastic-jacket it if necessary. Then click onto the 'add item' icon in the cataloguing software (continually running on several PCs), scan the barcode, type in a surprisingly small number of pertinent details, do a quick check for typos, hit OK and dump the book onto the re-shelving trolley. If that represents $50 of work (or, about 5 hours at my junior rate of pay), then I'll be suing the library for a significant amount of underpayment... the materials certainly couldn't be worth more than a few cents per title. As an aside, the quality of these alternatively-published materials must be pretty awful given some of the trash I had to process from major publishers! :) --tahrey 22/5/07


It can take several hours just to catalogue a book if the book is not already in common cataloging databases like OCLC's, all neatly prepared for "copy cataloguing" or "derived cataloguing". And the library pays a certain amount to OCLC (or other suppliers) for the data needed for cataloging. Yes, if we are talking of a book which is already in one of those cataloging databases it can take less tha an hour to catalogue and process the book, but most vanity books never make it to the Library of Congress databases or to the OCLC databases (and some rare books which sometimes end up as donations to the library are not completely described by Library of Congress databases, OCLC et alia) so they have to go through a process called "original cataloging", which sometimes requires hours. In other words a professional librarian (somebody with a master's degree in Library and information Science) has to nearly read the book then look up comparable books on the databases to know not only in which part of the Library classification it will be placed but also what other elements are necessary for a useful description of the book, using both that library's adaptation of rules derived from the International Standard Bibliographic Description and possibly the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR). Whew! This means heavy labour costs, so big libraries (university, State or national libraries) break up the process among several types of library employees (paid at different scales), with the library clerks (persons with a high school diploma) doing the tagging and shelving, the library technicians (persons with a junior college or tech college diploma in library techniques) doing the preliminary intellectual work and the professional librarians (master's degree) doing the final work and approval of the cataloguing. This "assembly-line" process is usually integrated with the book-selecting and book-buying acquisitions process so donations to the library, wether they are vanity press books or not, can very easily screw thing up completely, unless provisions are made beforehand to treat donations in another process. --AlainV 03:54, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Johnathon Clifford

The article now says "Johnathon Clifford claims to have coined the term in 1959/1960." I would like a cite -- where does he make this claim? who is he? where does he claim to have used the term? DES 21:39, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

The article actually spells it "Johnathan," but both spellings are unlikely - the name is usually spelled "Jonathan".


Don't know the validity of his claim, but there is a guy who spells his name like that and claims to have coined the term. [1]

I went to school with a guy with his name spelt like that, it appears to be rather polymorphic!

[edit] "History" deletion

History my rear end. That was nothing but a polemical screed against the publishing industry. Nothing salvagable from an NPoV perspective, so it's gone. If somebody wants to write a history of vanity presses (which has absolutely nothing to do with the history of independent and self publication), go right ahead. Iceberg3k 04:43, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

The first paragrpah of this section, which indicated that the equation of self or vanity publication with low status is comparitively recent was factual (I drafted a version of this as one of my first few edits to wikipedia). I have reestored this paragraph without the PoV screed that had become attached to it. DES (talk) 23:44, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Inappropriate tone

Much of the text reads like a how-to not get ripped off. While scams are noteable, it should be written in an encyclopedic way. Andjam 14:22, 31 December 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Self publishing and vanity publishing

It should be pointed out that self-publishing is legitimate: for example small societies, local museums, fanzines and other persons groups produce publications which they know will have small print runs. They are buying a service and know what they are doing. Libraries (particularly the local history sections) may well stock such publications if appropriate.

Jackiespeel 22:04, 31 December 2005 (UTC)


[edit] ABI

isn't the "American Biographical Instiute" a vanity publisher?

[edit] How to Verify Vanity Publishers?

I note that every single example of a Vanity Publisher in the list has had "citation needed" added. In the Vanity gallery article there is a useful list of galleries and what they charge, but not a question as to whether they are or are not vanity galleries. While I recognize that publishers do not want to be identified as vanity presses, is there perhaps some way to verify their status? Artemis-Arethusa 16:55, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I found the source of the list and added reference links to all relevant publishers. Artemis-Arethusa 17:09, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually, answers.com is not the source of the list, but a copy of an older version of this article. I've removed items that were sourced only to this article, after a brief google search for appropriate sources. We still have a reasonably substantial list, which seems like enough to me. JulesH 23:41, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lulu.com?

Should lulu.com be considered a vanity publisher? They are more in the "print on demande" market, and I think that their business model is quite different from the usual vanity publisher / scam. I've read some genuine praises about them in blogs, so it makes me wonder. -- Hugo Dufort 20:04, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

They do apear to be a self-publisher, because they chanrge only a commisison, without an upfront payment. Med Publisher 00:08, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
So should lulu.com be removed from the list at the end of this article (about vanity publishers)? I'm just wondering of course; I don't advocate self-publication. I own a small-scale publishing "house" in poetry (a real one, not a vanity press). A poor lady I know, who has limited talent, spent 3500$ only to get a photocopied spiral-bound "book" from a vanity publisher. This is revolting. -- Hugo Dufort 04:38, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
I removed Lulu.com. They're a POD self-publishing service; their features are completely different from those of a vanity press and they're very up-front with what they promise (they are effectively a publishing-oriented version of CafePress). You don't go to Lulu because you're looking for instant fame and fortune, you go to Lulu because you're looking for a way to self-publish on the internet. Iceberg3k 19:20, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I was surprised to find Lulu in that list. -- Hugo Dufort 23:28, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
The way I understood them as working was that they only printed a copy of your book when someone ordered it, which is faithful to the print-on-demand model, much more modern and efficient, and a fair bit different from the usual vanity publishing model (you pay them thousands and get about 20 copies of your book back...). If my memory is working correctly then that surely disallows them from the VP list?

I got a book published by lulu, and I don't think they can be called vanity publishers. I didn't spend a single penny for getting it published and whenever my book sells, they give me a certain percentage. That is convenient for a new writer who hasn't been able to get her book published by a mainstream publisher. They aren't cheating people. - Shruti Chandra Gupta

[edit] Is Xlibris or isn't it?

Based on various sources of information, I thought Xlibris was a vanity press, but when I added that information to its Wikipedia page it was removed without comment. Frankly, that whole page reads like little more than an advertisement for Xlibris, not a balanced article. So is it or isn't it? Artemis-Arethusa 16:53, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Excessively Perjorative

We have become used to the idea of large publishers offering mega-contracts to super-star authors (who it seems not infrequently write "with" someone). Such publishers also carry lots of books that are less spectacular, but perhaps not altogether unremunerative. On the other hand, Academic press is far more likely to involve strange boondoggles. I remember walking into Peter Lang with my cities-book ms. and being given a fee schedule. The last time I looked, this was more or less typical of many Euro-based academic publishing houses, and UPA here. Even when an academic book is offered by a legit house, it is taken on merely for esteem reasons, and the academic author gets little if any money. The polite term for this is "subvention" and it is commonplace not only for books but for academic journals; it is, in fact, expected. There are other variants on the theme. The New Press, e. g., has published some very dubious things from CUNY; one would be interested in knowing what the

The article talks about "peer review". In such a case, a subventer has some influence? And anyway, peer-review is pretty much a crock; doesn't guarantee much beyond assuring that the journals using it are reviews-of-our-research.

The article appears to think "legitimate" publishers market books. Nonsense! They market some books. A very different matter. Panelists fielded by the Authors' Guild, talking about book marketing, have continually recommended an author engage his own publicist and do his own marketing. If you ain't a superstar, you ain't gonna get much.

There is also an inherent view of knowledge and "intellectual property" implicit to this article that is seriously flawed. The late-60s/early-70s views of folks such as Habermas and Lyotard (who quotes Habermas approvingly in Postmodern Condition), that knowledge becomes somehow proprietary, and therefore controlled distribution somehow valuable, are clearly not on the mark. This in turn changes the nature of publishing, which assumes that proprietary and valuable character. --djenner 14:57, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Making Light is not an attack site

I don't know what an attack site is, but Making Light isn't one. It's a widely read, oft-cited, notable website edited by some of science fiction's most prominent editors, people with long, deep histories in the field and in publishing. The citation removed is to a piece of original investigative work that is supported by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's "Author Beware" clearing house of information on scam presses.

I've replied on your user page. ·:·Will Beback ·:· 23:46, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] All Vanity Presses are Not Unethical Scams

I made changes to this article because it was very negative. There are many good reasons for an author to choose a vanity press and just because someone had a bad experience doesn't make them all scams. Real vanity presses should be listed here as a resource for people looking to publish books for personal use, etc. I think there is also a COI going on here with SFWA and it's memebers. Please don't make this article about personal attacks. This just isn't the place for it.-- Showauthor (talk) 21:34, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I thought "vanity press" was supposed to be a negative term, and this article dealt specifically with printers, authors and practices that make up "vanity press". While some of your edits do address POV, others seem skewed in the other direction. Flowanda | Talk 22:39, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

The term itself is negative, but the practice of using a vanity press is not always a bad option and offering such services is not unethical. Is there a specific edit that I made that you are unhappy with? I am sure we can reach a neutral agreement.Showauthor (talk) 15:04, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

My take on the article was that the term "vanity press" was similar to the way that "astroturfing" or "front group" was used when discussing lobby groups or grassroots organizations...that it was about specific practices that involve deception or taking advantage of someone's inexperience or desire to get published, not self-publishing in general. I also thought you were looking for feedback (there's nothing like making a bunch of edits and having no response, right?), but I don't have any experience in this area to make much more than wikistyle or tone (like the "you" how-to tone you've since edited) comments. Flowanda | Talk 22:25, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Flowanda | Talk 22:25, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

A scam is a scam and deception is deception. You'll find both in every type of business on this Earth, but "vanity presses" and "vanity publishers" are not all scams. the Merriam-Webster definition for a "vanity press" is "a publishing house that publishes books at the author's expense." There's nothing wrong with that. Authors choose what kind of publisher to go with depending on their needs and there are logical reasons for an author to choose a vanity press such as small quantity or personal print projects. It is fair to say that "vanity presses" are looked down on when it comes to marketing because "vanity presses" are not selective and therefor this raises questions about quality. However, making this article specifically about deception and/or businesses that take advantage of authors would be like making an article about any other legitimate business enterprise which takes payment for services rendered and discusses the exchange of capital as "deceptive." One would not necessarily classify McDonalds business transactions as deceptive but I fail to see much of a difference from a person paying money to get their book published and a person who pays for a Big Mac. Showauthor (talk) 16:50, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Just to add to these comments... I was surprised by the tone of this article which doesn't seem to make any legitimate distinction between vanity presses and self-publishing. Self-publishing is a totally legitimate way of getting your work published, particularly if it's something that publishing houses are unlikely to be interested in (for whatever reason) - in general, they provide a printing and binding service to authors and charge them for it, and occasionally may provide distribution as well, for an additional fee. A vanity press, on the other hand, also provides this service - but implies rather more. Vanity presses imply that you will become a successful published author, whereas in reality many will send you 20 copies of your book and leave the rest sitting in a warehouse. They imply that they will provide marketing support, get your book in Waterstones etc, but never intend to - and charge for the privilege. Perhaps this is a trans-Atlantic thing? I think in the UK there is generally accepted to be a clear divide between 'self-publishing' and 'vanity publishing', but maybe the terms are used subtly differently in the US? 193.60.236.98 (talk) 09:33, 7 April 2008 (UTC)Anon

[edit] AuthorHouse

I've taken AuthorHouse off the list of examples. The source provided - 10 Publishing Mistakes And How to Avoid Them - is not reliable, but even if it was, it specifically distinguishes POB from vanity press, and never claims that AuthorHouse is a vanity press/ - Bilby (talk) 10:48, 25 April 2008 (UTC)