The vanity press strikes again

[Worldwalker]

Naw, there are enough admirals already.

[simonroyle]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Naw, there are enough admirals already.

Speaking as someone who's been shoveling coal in the boiler room for the last six months I agree with that also.

[L.J. Sellers]

The vanity presses are starting to feel the pain. The biggest one just cut freelancers' pay in response to shrinking business. So some authors are wising up and publishing their unedited manuscripts for free through CreateSpace and all the e-book platforms. I believe the trend will continue and in a few years the vanities will be mostly out of business.
L.J.

[Worldwalker]

One can hope... one can hope. Even if you've got some hideous atrocity of a book you want to get out there, you shouldn't have to pay someone else hundreds of dollars to make a PDF out of it.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Dahak

I was under the impression that Amazon allows just about anyone to self-publish through the Kindle.

Is that impression mistaken?

Nope. See http://www.amazon.com/gp/seller-acco...opic=200260520 and https://www.createspace.com/pub/l/ge...25&utm_id=4284

A fair number of folks offering ebooks are going the Amazon route first, simply because they have the broadest market.

If true, it just means that the signal-to-noise figures are that much worse.

An old friend once described making sense of Amazon sales rankings as like trying to discern patterns in the random garbage on the screen when the TV is tuned to a non-existent channel. I think it's an apt description.

They key question for any author going that route is "Are the books selling and making any actual money?" Before the books can sell, people who might like to read them must be aware they exist, and just putting it up on Amazon doesn't do that.
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Dennis

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

They key question for any author going that route is "Are the books selling and making any actual money?" Before the books can sell, people who might like to read them must be aware they exist, and just putting it up on Amazon doesn't do that.

However, putting up on Amazon for free does. The last three books I've bought have been book 2s where the first book was a freebie. I'd never heard of any of the authors before.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

As I understand it, pretty much, yeah: anyone who wants to can lock their book in Amazon DRM and sell it through the Amazon store to an Amazon-controlled device. I sure wouldn't do it ... but there's worse. The author whose vanity book started this paid for a PDF of unknown DRM status (I couldn't find out in a quick look) sold only by a vanity press nobody has ever heard of, and as a POD paperback which is currently #943,776 on Amazon. Yeah, even worse -- despite paying hundreds of dollars for the "service".

There's a whole ecosystem out there feeding on the desire of folks to be published authors, and offering a variety of pay for services to them. The one fortunate thing is that the vast majority of author wannabes never reach the point of a completed manuscript, so we're spared a considerable amount of awful stuff.

Some vanity publishers do provide services. The oldest and longest established is Vantage Press, around since 1949. They have editors to help turn the manuscript into something publishable, and designers to create readable books with decent covers. They even promote, taking ads in places like the NY Times Book Review. But what you pay for is X number of copies of a printed, bound, professionally produced volume. Actually selling the book is on you, and you pay all costs.

If you know that going in, I can see cases where it might be a reasonable option. Too many folks don't seem to get the concept, think that publication through Vantage or less reputable similar outfit means instant success, and are vastly disappointed when they find themselves with thousands of books with no market.

In one sense, I kind of regret the impending demise of vanity presses because of ebooks and POD solutions with low or no up front costs. They're a filter medium. You could still get pretty much anything published back when through a vanity outfit, but it cost, and the costs spared us a lot of bad books.
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Dennis

[Hellmark]

I was always told that a book shouldn't take less than a page a day on average, once you factor in writing, proofing, editing, etc.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

However, putting up on Amazon for free does. The last three books I've bought have been book 2s where the first book was a freebie. I'd never heard of any of the authors before.

You're one of those who look for freebies in areas that interest you, download them, and if you like them, consider buying and downloading other books by that author. It's a valid model, and its how the Baen Free Library works.

The question is how many other folks are like you, and how many sales the authors make and what revenue they get from publishing on Amazon.

My basic feeling is self-publishing is an appropriate route to take in two general cases:

One: You're an established author with a following created by being successfully published by a traditional publisher. You already have a market. There are a fair number of authors who now have the electronic rights to back catalog of their books and are looking at this option.

Two: You just want to write, and publish what you write. Doing so is its own reward. You don't really expect to make any real money at it, and don't plan to quit your day job.

If you don't fall into either of those categories, and want to make your living, or a significant fraction of it, from published work, self-publishing is problematic at best, and you are strongly advised not to give up your day job.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

I was always told that a book shouldn't take less than a page a day on average, once you factor in writing, proofing, editing, etc.

Er, what shouldn't take less than a page a day on average? Reading the book, or the process of producing it for publication?
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Dennis

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Not to seriously contradict anything that's been said so far, but I'd like to point out another reason to go to some of these services. The daughter of a friend of mine has written 3 short books, and has been encouraged to publish them. However, they simply have not had the time to do any of the legwork themselves, and have finally decided to pay a service that will essentially help them package the book, and create marketing materials for them to use to sell the book. (The service does not include later printing of sales quantities, but they will do that as well).

For those who do not have the resources or ability to do a lot of these post-writing steps--and I think there are quite a few--these services are valuable to them, and may make the difference between writing something no one will see, and something that will actually sell and bring them a following.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

For those who do not have the resources or ability to do a lot of these post-writing steps--and I think there are quite a few--these services are valuable to them, and may make the difference between writing something no one will see, and something that will actually sell and bring them a following.

I concur.

I know some folks who are "book doctors". They are published authors who have also been editors for trade houses, and know what makes a salable book.

An old friend asked me for recommendations a while back. A friend of hers had written a historical novel set in California during the period when Spain ruled the area. It's a period on which she is a subject expert, and he passed her the manuscript for review. She said he had his facts straight, but had no idea how to tell a readable story. Because he was a friend and she didn't want to damage that relationship, she didn't want to tell him that. She knew I knew people who could help. I sent her a couple of contacts, and said "Tell him you agree he got his facts straight, but don't feel qualified to assess the literary value of the book. Refer him to these folks for a proper critique. They will charge a sliding scale depending on what he wants done, but it may be worth his while."

There are lots of folks who would benefit from such services. The first problem is admitting they need the assistance. The second is finding a reputable individual or service they can work with, and there an awful lot of snake oil salesmen peddling supposed assistance that will cost money and return no real results.

Too many aspiring authors can't get past problem one.
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Dennis

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

My basic feeling is self-publishing is an appropriate route to take in two general cases:

One: You're an established author with a following created by being successfully published by a traditional publisher. You already have a market. There are a fair number of authors who now have the electronic rights to back catalog of their books and are looking at this option.

Two: You just want to write, and publish what you write. Doing so is its own reward. You don't really expect to make any real money at it, and don't plan to quit your day job.

I'd add:
Three: You are trying to build up some sort of reputation and following to increase your chances of getting a publishing deal.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

I'd add:
Three: You are trying to build up some sort of reputation and following to increase your chances of getting a publishing deal.

From my understanding, unless you generate exceptional sales (in the thousands), reputable publishers do not consider vanity press and pay-to-play to be publishing at all. That is, you're less likely to get them (or an agent) to look at your work if you admit to vanity publishing in the past; at the very least, you're no better off than you would be if you were coming in totally raw.

The services that actually provide editing, design work, marketing assistance, and so on, are, as I understand it, quite expensive, because you get what you pay for. I have to wonder how many of the "hey, I wrote a book!" people are going to spend the money to buy that assistance, and how many are hand their money to a less honest (but cheaper) company, which will end up being something that saves their DOC as a PDF, gives them a list xeroxed from Writer's Market, adds some generic suggestions on selling a book, and charges them hundreds of dollars for those "services"? Given the number of vanity press products (going back to the pbook days) that show no sign of having been within sight of a proofreader, I'm fairly sure that most end up with the latter.

I've talked to people who said they haven't considered real publishing because real publishers "throw out most of your story and rewrite it the way they want." I've never been entirely certain if what they actually meant was "turned it into something at least vaguely resembling English" or if they seriously believed the things that some of the vanity presses tell them. As I think we can all tell from that signal-to-noise ratio, there needs to be, at the very least, some kind of proofreading involved. I'm in a discussion with a fellow in another thread whose response to my pointing out (okay, kind of making fun of) some errors in his blurb for his book wasn't to rush off and fix the errors in the book, or even the blurb -- it was to bring his brother in as a sock puppet to praise his book. That seems to be the reaction of the vanity press victims, too. The companies looting their wallets don't scare them off by telling them their stuff is unreadable; they tell them it's "special genius" and should be published exactly as it is. Which it is. And then everyone else looks at it ... stares at it ... goes "huh????" ... and deletes it.

In other words, it's kind of backward. The people who could most benefit from professional advice are least likely to acknowledge they need it, let alone seek it out, while the people who seek it out already know they need something, which is far more than half the battle, and are therefore more likely to start with something readable. More likely, in fact, than people like the lady in that newspaper article are to end with one.

And yeah, I blame the vanity presses. They ignore the truth, shade the truth, or flat-out lie in order to get people who might have a chance at real publishing, or might have a good book with some editorial input, to give them money. In the end, their real customers are always their authors ... and everyone but the vanity press owners loses.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

I'd add:
Three: You are trying to build up some sort of reputation and following to increase your chances of getting a publishing deal.

This assumes that might be the outcome. From what I've seen, all it will really do for you at best is demonstrate you can actually complete a manuscript. It won't convince an agent or editor you might be worth a contract, and the fact you've done so may damage your credibility.
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Dennis