Thursday, February 23, 2012


Self Publishing and Vanity Presses


           Pat Cher



vanity press or vanity publisher is a term describing a publishing house that publishes books at the author's expense. "Wikipedia"
The traditional publisher, edits, prints the author's book, and looks after the marketing. The author gets paid a percentage of the book sales. The percentage can be as low as 5% and  sometimes as high as 15%. 
Consider that in Canada, a best selling author sells in the region of 5000 books. If the book sells for 19.95, and the author gets 10% of the sales,he/she will receive $9750. The royalty might be a little high if you consider that discounts may apply and the author might get less than the 10%.

That doesn't sound like much for someone who has spent years writing a book. I researched Mi'kmaq Summer for 10 years. I wrote and rewrote the book. I put most chapters online to be critiqued. Since other people were critiquing my book, I  had to return the critique. How many hours did I spend on this book? I can't even begin to guess. All that time and to maybe earn $10,000, if perchance it becomes a best seller.

I must admit to not having the persistence of Stephen King who sent his book to countless publishers before his first book was accepted. I sent my book to two Canadian agents who didn't want to represent it, and to one publisher who has yet to reply. 

Maybe I'm lazy or maybe, I just don't want the frustration, but I've decided not to go that route.

I'm also very frugal, and don't want to spend money (Vanity Press) to get it published. The answer appears to be Print on Demand (POD). I've been exploring this concept for a while and in my next post will be looking at two avenues which seem more appealing. Stay tuned. Be back soon!

Please post questions if you would like me to expand on some of the above. Thank you for reading.


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