 |
What’s the difference between mainstream publishing, vanity press
and self publishing?
A trawl around the internet will give you the answers
to the above question but in a nutshell here it is.
|
|
Mainstream publishing
Mainstream and independent publishers quite simply
place an author’s book into the market place at no cost to the author. The
publisher pays for everything associated with getting the book published
and distributed including editing, design and illustration, proof reading
(quality control), publicity and marketing. A good publisher will also see
that the author’s book is made available for full distribution and give a
reasonable and fair royalty payment. It is very unusual for a mainstream
or independent publisher to offer a further advance to an unknown author
though it does happen occasionally. There are conflicting figures as to
the chances of being published mainstream but most have a slush pile as
high as the ceiling and indeed many have quite simply closed the door to
anyone who has not been published before. Make no mistake, if you want
to be published mainstream you have to be a literary genius and lucky at
the same time. Remember, JK Rowling and Harry Potter was rejected by
several mainstream publishers.
|
|
Vanity Press
Vanity press charges a fee to put your book into the
market place. There are various costs associated with putting a book into
production. As mentioned above, these include editing, design and
illustration of the book cover and quality control. Most vanity press
publishers accept almost anything submitted but beware of a vanity press
publisher who do not edit or 'tidy your book up'. You are paying a fee,
generally between £400 and £3,000 so don’t just look for the cheapest;
check out exactly what you are getting for the fee you are paying. A
vanity press publisher will normally accept a word document submission and
turn it into the finished article without too much effort from the author.
This is vanity publishing. We will produce your book to a high
standard and deliver it to you. But please be aware that it is very
unlikely that bookshops will ever want to stock your book. Furthermore,
any promotion you do for the book will have to be organised and funded by
you, the author. Click here for some ideas. |
|
Self Publishing
Self publishing as the name suggests, leaves the hard
work to you. A self publishing publisher will publish anything as long as
the author pays the fee and is generally less expensive than vanity press.
However you will not receive any assistance on editing, quality control or
design of the cover. The self publisher will also generally require the
files to be uploaded in a specific format and you may require the
additional assistance of a technical advisor, at an additional cost.
|
 Conclusion
By all means, if you think your book is high quality, keep plugging
away at the mainstream market. You may get lucky. However, look at
the costs. On average a 100,000 word A4 manuscript costs around £15
to print and post. (Some publishers ask for two copies.) If you are
able to find a good vanity press publisher who charges under £750
that relates to only fifty submissions mainstream. Most would-be
authors are prepared to (and do) send in excess of one hundred
submissions. Our managing director met one author at this year’s
London Book Fair who boasted she’d spent nearly four thousand pounds
sending her manuscript to publishers around the globe and still
hadn’t been accepted.
If you accept that your manuscript needs
‘polishing’ and are prepared to pay the costs involved, then vanity
press is the way to go. If your manuscript has been written and
rewritten and proofed and checked and you feel that the final
draught is as near perfect as it can be, then possibly self
publishing is for you. One word of warning though. Make sure whoever
you choose offer full distribution of the finished book. It’s no
good getting your own version of the boy wizard out there if no one
can get a hold of it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
