Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeB1972
According to a lot of people here Vanity Publishing is the way to go for self pubbers.
If you need all the editing services etc that a traditional publisher used to provide but without handing over your rights then you need to pay up front for them (i.e. what used to be called Vanity Publishing).
Looks to me like Penguin is doing the sensible thing and offering the same kind of services they would offer a signed author but for an up-front cost.
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There is a huge difference between self-publishing and vanity publishing. I plan to self-publish a novel and a novelette in January/February 2013. I've arranged for a freelance editor to edit my manuscript and will be commissioning a professional cover. Yes, I'm paying those costs up front. However, when I upload my books to Amazon and all the other etailers, I'll be keeping the full amount of royalties. My full length will be priced over 2.99, so I'll get the full 70% royalty from Amazon.
From everything I've heard, vanity publishers don't actually edit your books. They throw them up on an etailer's site pretty much as is (with a cover they created, I assume), charge the author for various marketing promotions, and then they also take a cut of your royaties, so you're no longer making the full 70% royalty but much less.
If you're going to pay someone to edit your book and design a cover, get recommendations from other authors who've gone before you and oversee all that stuff yourself. You can even hire someone - for a flat one-time fee - to format your books for you before you upload them to the ebook stores. Don't go with a vanity press and give up a sizeable portion of your earnings forever in exchange for no editing and constant phone calls that you send them more money.
What Penguin's owners are doing is monetizing their slush pile. They know gullible new authors will jump on this as an opportunity to say "I'm published with Penguin!" I'm sure, however, that there will be a clear distinction made between this venture and Penguin's traditionally published authors. The only one who wins in this scenario is the vanity press, who will continue to milk the author for money.