History Main / VanityPublishing

* ''Lundon's Bridge and the Three Keys'', published in 2011, is a children's fantasy novel intended as the first in a five-book franchise. It came to public attention not because of its own merits, but because a film adaptation with Paris Jackson (Michael's daughter) in the lead role was announced at the same time; she even appears on the book's cover. The [[http://www.lundons.com official website]] hypes the whole business as "an entertainment fundraising campaign", promising to donate 50% of book and film profits to schools.

* The infamous ''Literature/TheLegendOfRahAndTheMuggles'' by N.K. Stouffer was self-published by the author in the 1980s. It was later republished by a company that was formed just to publish it 2001 in light of Stouffer's (since failed, miserably) attempt to sue J.K. Rowling. This [[http://www.magespace.net/mugrev.html plot breakdown]] should show you why. A small-time publisher tried to cash in the NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity and did a small print run, but it folded the next year.
* The first few books of Literature/TheCrossTimeEngineer series were published by BaenBooks, but the later novels are entirely self published.

* ''Wild Animus'' was vanity published, and then, for a time, sent to anyone who wanted it, ''free of charge''. The book itself was generally considered to be worth less than the $0 most readers spent on it. Yes, ''a book worth -$10!''

* ''LatawnyaTheNaughtyHorseLearnsToSayNoToDrugs'' is a hilarious SoBadItsGood piece of vanity-published gold. It's the only children's book in which a horse OD's from marijuana, with an illustration of his family (of horses) crying over him. The surreal illustrations and repetitive, {{Anvilicious}} writing seal the deal. While marijuana ''is'' toxic to horses, appying this to people may be an example of FantasticAesop.

* [[http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail.aspx?isbn=9781587215087 Paul Arthur Trainer]] (variously known as Paul Trainer, Arthur Trainer, and Paul Arthur Trainer), author of Clown (in which the author's MarySue spends entire chapters plugging his other books, and Bill Gates is killed by the titular psychopath whilst living in a house "made entirely of brick"), Witch (in which the titular BigBad is actually aided by a flying monkey), and Life Flash (in which a woman threatens to divorce her husband if he has ever seen a bear) has developed something of a cult following among small-press horror writers and fans, who have been known to read his books aloud at conventions, to maximum comedic effect.

* John Harrigan's ''The Professor and the Dominatrix'', published by [=PublishAmerica=], was apparently sent out by the author to some atheist groups at its release. It was a murder mystery featuring sex and violence, which was hoped to draw the reader in and then lead them to question their religious beliefs more closely. One member of a receiving group decided to review it and [[http://www.blaghag.com/2009/04/book-review-professor-and-dominatrix.html put her review online]]. Unfortunately, she did not particularly care for the book. According to the review, much of it was basically a long AuthorTract, and the main character was a blatant Mary Sue, to the point that he wasn't just an outspoken atheist like the author, but even had the ''exact same'' day job too (professor of psychology), and a [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking mustache]]. The author [[http://www.blaghag.com/2009/05/professor-responds.html responded to the criticisms by]], among other things, pointing out the favorable review the writer of the foreword gave it, similar to what the one non-deleted [[http://www.amazon.com/Professor-Dominatrix-John-Harrigan/dp/1605633682 amazon review did]] (the remaining review mentions other, critical reviews that were presumably deleted; it is implied they were sock puppets). It left many readers on the Pharyngula blog [[http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/04/oh_noan_atheist_can_write_a_ba.php thinking or hoping the book was an elaborate joke]]. (Note, the remaining Amazon review is not from a sock puppet; it is a "real name" account for someone other than the author or foreword writer. It was the reviewer's only review though, so it seems to be purpose built).
* ''[[http://www.amazon.com/Harry-Potters-muggles-guide-magic/dp/1929771053/ref=cm_cr-mr-title Harry Potter's muggle's guide to magic]]'' must fall under this category. There's no other way to describe this 'dictionary' of the HarryPotter books that was published well before the series concluded. It's rife with misspellings (wizardu books?) and inaccuracies -- apparently Draco Malfoy's father is named Dracus, Dumbledore's first name is Albert, and the Weasleys' car was a Flying Ford Angelica. The writing is also incomprehensible and manages to confuse the plots of the second and third books in the series. The art is just as bad; while Hermione wearing glasses is a mild oversight, making Hagrid into a four-foot-tall lumberjack and giving Mad-Eye Moody green skin is much less forgivable. At least we may all take comfort in the fact that the book is out of print.

* In the play CyranoDeBergerac by Edmond Rostand, there is an InUniverse example At Act II Scene VII, [[StarvingArtist Cyrano]] [[DiscussedTrope discuss this trope]] with [[TheWatson Le Bret]], claiming that he will [[DefiedTrope defy it]]. Given Rostand was an [[ShownTheirWork expert at]] TheCavalierYears, the time this play occurs, we see that it’s OlderThanSteam [[hottip:*: Because this play is VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory, there were a real poet called CyranoDeBergerac and Sercy was his real editor, implying the very thing the fictional Cyrano vehemently denies]].

* [[http://www.poetry.com The National Library of Poetry]], anyone? Sure, you don't ''have'' to pay anything to get published...but you know they expect you to buy the book, and pay to travel to the conference where your poem will allegedly be read, and so on and so forth. People, including DaveBarry, have gotten in on the attempts to send something that's actually bad enough that they'll refuse to publish it; [[http://www.wockyjivvy.com/poetry/shame/index.html so far, no dice]].

* The author of a book titled ''Literature/TheAdventuresOfArchieReynolds'' attempted to promote his book by [[SockPuppet using multiple accounts on Amazon.com]] to [[TheShill write nearly identical glowing reviews]]. It was obvious from clicking each screenname that the accounts were created just to praise that book. He'd even tried the same stunt in other places as well. The book itself? Horrible dialog, BeigeProse galore, and very repetitive writing. There's many more examples of that, with Archie thinking things before he says them, then does them (e.g. Archie wants to get back at a girl who cracked an egg over his head. He sees her swimming pool and thinks to throw her in there. He then says out loud that he should throw her in the pool. He then throws her in the pool.) The actual story itself is quite dumb. Bullies who pack snowballs for use outside of winter and talk like pirates, girls who cracks eggs over boys' heads while they're busy reading the newspaper, "celebrations" after minor victories that seem to last forever, characters who have no personality, and lots of IdiotBall passing. The author appears to have been trying to combine a SliceOfLife story with a riveting adventure, which would have been cool, but failed at both.

* The author of a book titled ''Literature/TheAdventuresOfArchieReynolds'' attempted to promote his book by [[SockPuppet using multiple accounts on Amazon.com]] to [[TheShill write nearly identical glowing reviews]]. It was obvious from clicking each screenname that the accounts were created just to praise that book. He'd even tried the same stunt in other places as well. The book itself? Horrible dialog, BeigeProse galore, and very repetitive writing. There's many more examples of that, with Archie thinking things before he says them, then does them (e.g. Archie wants to get back at a girl who cracked an egg over his head. He sees her swimming pool and thinks to throw her in there. He then says out loud that he should throw her in the pool. He then throws her in the pool.) The actual story itself is quite dumb. Bullies who pack snowballs for use outside of winter and talk like pirates, girls who cracks eggs over boys' heads while they're busy reading the newspaper, "celebrations" after minor victories that seem to last forever, characters who have no personality, and lots of IdiotBall passing. The author appears to have been trying to combine a SliceOfLife story with a riveting adventure, which would have been cool, but failed at both.

* The author of a book titled ''TheAdventuresOfArchieReynolds'' attempted to promote his book by [[SockPuppet using multiple accounts on Amazon.com]] to [[TheShill write nearly identical glowing reviews]]. It was obvious from clicking each screenname that the accounts were created just to praise that book. He'd even tried the same stunt in other places as well. The book itself? Horrible dialog, BeigeProse galore, and very repetitive writing. There's many more examples of that, with Archie thinking things before he says them, then does them (e.g. Archie wants to get back at a girl who cracked an egg over his head. He sees her swimming pool and thinks to throw her in there. He then says out loud that he should throw her in the pool. He then throws her in the pool.) The actual story itself is quite dumb. Bullies who pack snowballs for use outside of winter and talk like pirates, girls who cracks eggs over boys' heads while they're busy reading the newspaper, "celebrations" after minor victories that seem to last forever, characters who have no personality, and lots of IdiotBall passing. The author appears to have been trying to combine a SliceOfLife story with a riveting adventure, which would have been cool, but failed at both.

* The aforementioned [=PublishAmerica=] claims to be a "traditional publisher". In response to a comment on the company's website denigrating science fiction and fantasy authors, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_Nights a group of these authors put together]] ''AtlantaNights'', an [[StylisticSuck intentionally low-quality]] manuscript under the name [[PunnyName Travis Tea]]. The "novel" was accepted by [=PublishAmerica=] (which purports to have high standards and to reject the majority of submissions), despite the fact that it contained numerous deliberate plot holes and inconsistencies, a missing chapter, a chapter written by a [[ArtificialStupidity computer text-generating program]], and other flaws that should have rendered it unpublishable on its face (at least, by any "traditional publisher"). After the hoax was revealed, the acceptance was swiftly withdrawn.

* ''MaradoniaSaga'': It's self-published by some kid in Florida, and is possibly the worst book ever written.

* The first few books of TheCrossTimeEngineer series were published by BaenBooks, but the later novels are entirely self published.

* One of the most notorious examples of vanity publishing is ''[[http://www.eternalnight.co.uk/books/r/rosslaverne/nighttravelsoftheelvenvampire.html Night Travels of the Elven Vampire]]'' by [=LaVern=] Ross; orginally thought to have been a parody of vanity publishing, a la ''AtlantaNights''. Once discovered to have been a serious attempt at writing; it became the subject of multiple scathing reviews, some of them [[http://crevette.livejournal.com/113659.html brilliantly hilarious]]. Notorious for its over-the-top MarySue lead, laughably bad language, and bizarre graphic sex scenes; it generated at least two Internet memes. Eventually dropped by Amazon.com, a nearly identical "re-imagined" version, ''Eternity of Blood'', was subsequently vanity-published; written by Ross under the pen name Valena Graham.

* Music example: "{{Music/Friday}}" by Rebecca Black was the product of [[http://arkmusicfactory.com/ Ark Music Factory]], a vanity record label. However, her video [[MemeticMutation didn't exactly fall into obscurity.]]

** Said Florida kid once [[SmallNameBigEgo sneered]] at an equally young published author, causing much drama.
** Said Florida kid also posted on the Livejournal of an InheritanceCycle criticism site claiming that her book will fill a void in the fantasy market. Erm, what void?
** And then there was her excessive spamming of Wiki Answers and Wikipedia promoting herself and her books...

It's worth noting that there are differences between a vanity press and a self-publisher. In self-publishing, the writer takes on the duties of editor and formatter himself, simply contracting with a printing firm to produce the physical book. Naturally, for similar reasons, many (but not all) self-published books also suck. It may also be used for master's and doctoral dissertations, if the university expects them to be bound, and for writers whose texts are not in the dominant language of the country they're publishing in. Self-publishing is also very common in the developing world, where in some countries (India, most notably) more books are self-published than are published by commercial publishers. Online self-publishing has also been taking off as well, with site such as [[http://www.lulu.com Lulu]] letting any aspiring author submit his manuscript, choose the printing and binding options, and printing and delivering them on demand to anyone who buys the book.

Occasionally (''very'' occasionally) a vanity published book can break out and end up being published by a legitimate publishing company. This happened with the children's book series ''TheFairyChronicles''. It originally cost a lot and had only 32 pages (due to its small typeface), with no color and no illustrations. Once moved to a new publisher, it had vibrant color, many illustrations and more pages (with larger, more appropriately sized font).

When traditional publisher accepts a book for publication, it pays all the expenses related to publication in return for a certain percentage of the proceeds. The publisher is betting that the book will earn them more than it costs them to produce, which is why they're only interested in books that are likely to sell well. A vanity press, on the other hand, has the ''author'' foot the bill, which allows them to publish practically anything and still make a profit. This will often lead to fairly large expenses on the part of the writer, and is why many vanity presses tend to be dishonest about sales possibilities in order to get people to pay.

* John Harrigan's ''The Professor and the Dominatrix'', published by [=PublishAmerica=], was apparently sent out by the author to some atheist groups at its release. It was a murder mystery featuring sex and violence, which was hoped to draw the reader in and then lead them to question their religious beliefs more closely. One member of a receiving group decided to review it and [[http://www.blaghag.com/2009/04/book-review-professor-and-dominatrix.html put her review online]]. Unfortunately, she did [[{{Understatement}} not particularly care for the book]]. According to the review, much of it was basically a long AuthorTract, and the main character was a blatant Mary Sue, to the point that he wasn't just an outspoken atheist like the author, but even had the ''exact same'' day job too (professor of psychology), and a [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking mustache]]. The author [[http://www.blaghag.com/2009/05/professor-responds.html responded to the criticisms by]], among other things, pointing out the favorable review the writer of the foreword gave it, similar to what the one non-deleted [[http://www.amazon.com/Professor-Dominatrix-John-Harrigan/dp/1605633682 amazon review did]] (the remaining review mentions other, critical reviews that were presumably deleted; it is implied they were sock puppets). It left many readers on the Pharyngula blog [[http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/04/oh_noan_atheist_can_write_a_ba.php thinking or hoping the book was an elaborate joke]]. (Note, the remaining Amazon review is not from a sock puppet; it is a "real name" account for someone other than the author or foreword writer. It was the reviewer's only review though, so it seems to be purpose built).

Vanity publishers are companies that will essentially publish anything a would-be author has written, regardless of quality or potential market. Obviously, most of these books never sell.

They succeed through deceit. When a traditional publisher accepts a book for publication, it pays all the expenses related to publication in return for a certain percentage of the proceeds. The publisher is betting that the book will earn them more than it costs them to produce, which is why they're only interested in books that are likely to sell well. A vanity press, on the other hand, ''pretends'' to do this, but in reality it does what no reputable traditional publisher would ever do: it forces the writer to pay all the costs of publication, plus hefty "editing fees", all in advance. This means that a vanity press earns a fat profit even if none of the books they "publish" sells a single copy, which is why they accept almost any book submitted to them no matter how badly-written. Of course, they make it sound like their acceptance is based on a painstaking editorial process, but this is meant solely to act as an ego boost to the writer they're hoping to bilk (hence the name "''vanity'' publishing"). Basically, if your book is legal to sell in your country, a vanity press will take it on. They don't care if it's horribly written, they don't care if there's no market for it: as long as it's legal to publish they'll handle it -- as long as you pay. And pay. And pay. The cost of publishing something through a vanity press can be over ''one hundred times'' that of self-publishing.

* They're expensive. Either due to small print runs or good old price-gouging, a decent-sized novel can cost $20 or more before profits. Even children's books made by a vanity press are priced that highly.
* The writing quality is often terrible. For every competent author out there, [[SturgeonsLaw there are dozens of]] ''[[SturgeonsLaw terrible]]'' [[SturgeonsLaw authors]] convinced [[GiftedlyBad they're God's gift]] to the literary world, and vanity presses are how a lot of them get published. It also provides ProtectionFromEditors, seeing as there are none.
* The physical quality is often equally bad. Cheap paper, bad binding, slapdash cover art based on the title (if that), generic (or worse) typefaces, the list goes on.

Occasionally (''very'' occasionally, as in "almost never"), a vanity published book can break out and end up being published by a legitimate publishing company. This happened with the children's book series ''TheFairyChronicles''. It originally cost a lot and had only 32 pages (due to its small typeface), with no color and no illustrations. Once moved to a new publisher, it had vibrant color, many illustrations and more pages (with larger, more appropriately sized font).

It's worth noting that there are major differences between a vanity press and a self-publisher. In self-publishing, the writer takes on the duties of editor and formatter himself, contracting with a printing firm to produce the physical book. The contract is above-board and completely honest, and the writer knows in advance that the content of his book is totally up to him. The printer doesn't promise anything it isn't going to provide, and doesn't mislead the writer by implying that it will provide more services than it will. Some self-published books also suck, of course, but many (possibly most) do not: self-publishing is especially common among niche non-fiction writers whose subject is simply too specialized for a large commercial print run to be profitable. It may also be used for master's and doctoral dissertations, if the university expects them to be bound, and for writers whose texts are not in the dominant language of the country they're publishing in. Self-publishing is also very common in the developing world, where in some countries (India, most notably) more books are self-published than are published by commercial publishers. Online self-publishing has also been taking off as well, with site such as [[http://www.lulu.com Lulu]] letting any aspiring author submit his manuscript, choose the printing and binding options, and printing and delivering them on demand to anyone who buys the book.

So, to be clear: self-publishing is when you spend $500 ''knowing'' you'll never recover just to get your book out there. Vanity publishing is when you're cheated out of $50,000 by evil con artists who promise to make you the next J.K. Rowling. See the difference?

* ''Another Hope'', the infamous ''StarWars'' FanFic novel by Lori Jareo, came out from a vanity press. (Irrespective of quality, no reputable publisher would have touched such a work anyway.) When the author fearlessly put the book up for sale via mainstream channels like Amazon.com, GeorgeLucas' lawyers wept tears of burning sulfur.

*** A much-needed void

<<|{{Literature}}|>>

So, to be clear: self-publishing is when you spend $500 you ''know'' you'll never recover just to get your book out there. Vanity publishing is when you're cheated out of $50,000 by evil con artists who promise to make you the next J.K. Rowling. See the difference?

* The infamous ''TheLegendOfRahAndTheMuggles'' by N.K. Stouffer was self-published by the author in the 1980s. It was later republished by a company that was formed just to publish it 2001 in light of Stouffer's (since failed, miserably) attempt to sue J.K. Rowling. This [[http://www.magespace.net/mugrev.html plot breakdown]] should show you why. A small-time publisher tried to cash in the NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity and did a small print run, but it folded the next year.

Interestingly, many vanity presses support Amazon.com's "Search Inside the Book" feature and other book searching sites. While this can help readers find the rare gem in the rough, it also allows them to easily see [[SturgeonsLaw why so many vanity published books]] [[DarthWiki/{{Ptitlew9bltta3dv6n}} just plain suck]].

* Gollancz has bought the rights to the previously self-published six book series ''TheRiyriaRevelations'' by Michael J. Sullivan and will re-release it as a trilogy.

* Rebecca Black's song, "{{Music/Friday}}," was the product of a Vanity ''Production Company'', the Ark Music Factory. However, her video [[MemeticMutation didn't exactly fall into obscurity.]]

They succeed through deceit. When a traditional publisher accepts a book for publication, it pays all the expenses related to publication in return for a certain percentage of the proceeds. The publisher is betting that the book will earn them more than it costs them to produce, which is why they're only interested in books that are likely to sell well. A vanity press, on the other hand, ''pretends'' to do this, but in reality it does what no reputable traditional publisher would ever do: it forces the writer to pay all the costs of publication, plus hefty "editing fees", all in advance. This means that a vanity press earns a fat profit even if none of the books they "publish" sells a single copy, which is why they accept almost any book submitted to them no matter how badly-written. Of course, they make it sound like their acceptance is based on a painstaking editorial process, but this is meant solely to act as an ego boost to the writer they're hoping to bilk. Basically, if your book is legal to sell in your country, a vanity press will take it on. They don't care if it's horribly written, they don't care if there's no market for it: as long as it's legal to publish they'll handle it - as long as you pay. And pay. And pay. The cost of publishing something through a vanity press can be over ''one hundred times'' that of self-publishing.