When aiming to publish a book for the first time, debut authors have a lot of resources in front of them as far as the path to take to get their book to print. The two most prominent of these are self-publishing and traditional publishing. 

Self-publishing, which involves doing all of the drafting, editing, proofreading, marketing, and work it takes into making a book yourself (or at the very least, paying for these services yourself) and traditional publishing which involves finding an agent to negotiate the lease and sale of the rights for your book to a publisher who will take care of the book formatting on their part on the promise that your book will generate enough sales to earn back what the publisher paid. 

When taking the self-publishing route, whether it’s because you can afford it or the querying process takes far too long, it can be difficult figuring out which publisher is the right landing spot for your book at that point. At times, you will encounter a vanity publisher. These are self-publishers who offer high upfront costs and fees for services such as editing and marketing on top of printing costs, at the promise that your book will become a bestseller or the rights will be bought by a Big Five publisher.

Obviously, no one can promise that. No matter how good your book is or how much money you put into it (unless you are obscenely rich, but at that point, why would you even be reading this blog) no one can guarantee your book will generate enough sales to be a bestseller or picked up by a top publisher who already have such a high volume of submissions causing an enormous query backlog.

The issue with vanity publishers is they often reach out to debut authors who don’t yet know the ways of the business and may believe the amount they’re offered is a fair offer, and now while many cautious people could pursue other options first, when presented with the dreamy, high-end opportunity that vanity publishers often promise, it can be hard to say no for someone who may not know better. And when certain authors have experienced rejection after rejection after rejection from query letters abound, that can make the vanity offers even more enticing.

I once received a call from “New Reader Magazine”, very vague, very generic, who offered to feature my self-published book A Lyrical Soul in their magazine. They told me my book was on the Top 5 list of new titles they were looking to pick up, they even knew I had self-published through BookBaby and talked me through some of the flaws self-published authors have experienced there (some of which, I agreed with, but I digress).

They offered me a marketing strategy for my book, peer-reviews, set me up with a website, professional editing, and also guaranteed my title would be picked up by a Big 5 publisher, all of which were very appealing opportunities for me.

We had several calls that went back and forth, but eventually we had to get down to brass tax and talk about pricing, and that’s when I was hit with a $16,000 book deal proposal, for which I would have had to pay $8,000, and their organization would meet me halfway with $8,000, while assuring me that I would generate enough book sales to breakeven on my ROI. As you may expect, I did not accept.

Now, there are a lot of vanity presses who may not insist upon $X dollars over, let’s say $2,000, but often times, those who go through with vanity presses experience chinks in the publishing armor, from poor formatting and cover design, sparse communication, and an ultimately subpar quality book.

It’s unfortunate, really, because not only does it ruin the publishing experience for a first-time author whose dream of becoming an author is tarnished, but it also discourages them from future book deals, unwilling to have their first book remain as a blemish to their writing career forever – better to not have a writing career, at that point.

Vanity presses are not necessarily scams, at least since some abide by the rules of publishing, but they certainly fit into the criteria of scammy companies trying to prey on new, innocent authors with money to spend.

How to avoid vanity presses? Research will be your #1 asset. Go for presses who don’t charge upfront fees or long-term services, but rather give well detailed, practical deals, or search for traditional publishers who are imprints of larger ones. Also, if you come across a publisher that is particularly flirtatious, telling you your book is a “top 5 of so-and-so” or “potentially a new bestseller”, and all sorts of flattery, it’s likely a vanity press. 

Most publishers experience high volumes of submissions that are just as good or better than your work, so they don’t waste time with that type of flattery. Vanity press will by all means seem impressed by your writing, to psychologically have you believe the book will sell enough to pay off their outlandish fees, and get you to bite on the hook.

Also, many publishers – especially the big 5 – have ample resources that detail what rights are bought by the authors and what details are discussed in the contract. A vanity press may go through painstaking lengths to hide these details from you in a publishing contract, that without prior experience, an attorney, or a literary agent, could leave you with zero clue about where the rights to your book stand.

There are also ample courses for you to take which include self-publishing tips and FAQ, to get you started. BookBub and QueryTracker are also huge resources for writers! If you can, avoid a vanity press. Trustworthy and renowned self-publishers include BookBaby and IngramSpark, and Amazon has also been a rising destination for new authors as well.

There is a litany of publishers that accept unagented manuscripts too, such as Persephone Books or 8th House Publishing, and online writing platforms like Wattpad, Fizzo, and Inkitt could even kickstart the dedicated following of readers your story needs! Reedsy can also be a great tool in helping find the agents to best match up with and find a home for your book via the traditional publishing route. 

With all of these resources, really, you won’t have to settle for vanity presses when they offer you the moon.