What is vanity publishing? What are you paying for, and how is vanity publishing different from traditional publishing, hybrid publishing, and self-publishing?
I wanted to keep this article about vanity publishers and hybrid publishers as positive as possible while still doing the topic justice and giving new authors the advice they need to make the right publishing decision for them and their book.
As a self-publishing service provider in Australia, this is a topic that we continually come up against as we help new Australian authors self-publish their books, and often, republish books after they’ve had a bad experience with hybrid or vanity publishers.
For some authors, especially new authors or those who perhaps don’t have the time or technological skills, vanity or hybrid publishing serves a purpose. It enables them to publish a book they may never have had the opportunity to publish otherwise.
Only a small percentage of authors will ever land a traditional publishing deal, and self-publishing can be both time-consuming and challenging, yet still very rewarding.
Hybrid and vanity publishing fall somewhere between traditional publishing and self-publishing. I want to point out right at the start: There are legitimate hybrid publishing companies out there that care about the authors they choose to work with and provide a legitimate publishing experience for authors who don’t want to self-publish and can’t land a traditional publishing agreement.
Unfortunately, because of the negative connotations associated with vanity press labels, many vanity publishing companies reinvented themselves as hybrid publishing companies. While the business models are similar, I think the defining difference between a hybrid publishing company and a vanity publishing company is how upfront they are with their customers, how transparent their costs are, how they communicate, how they handle royalties, copyright, and honesty. However, finding that out for yourself is not only tricky, but it can also be a costly and heartbreaking learning curve.
If you’re currently considering self-publishing, and you’re not sure which is the best self-publishing platform for you, Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), IngramSpark Publishing, or others, check out The Best Self-Publishing Platforms to Publish Your Book! We cover the pros and cons of Australia’s most popular self-publishing platforms.
Defining the difference between vanity publishing and hybrid publishing is probably going to be the most challenging part of this article. The two are similar in the services they provide to Australian authors. Still, I don’t want to lump one group in with the other, as vanity publishing already has a negative connotation that may not apply to all hybrid publishers.
I’ll do my best to clearly define the different publishing options —traditional publishing, vanity/hybrid publishing, and self-publishing — to give you a clear idea of what you’re paying for and what you’re getting for your money, along with the pros and cons of each.
Defining the Different Publishing Pathways Open to Australian Authors
Before we define the different publishing options available to Australian authors, I want to address one of the most common questions new authors ask: “Do you think my book is good enough and worth publishing?” I always answer it the same way.
I’m not a publisher or book agent. I don’t have the ability to predict if a book will sell one copy or a thousand or hit the bestseller list. I can’t tell you if it’s good or not. It’s my job to provide the best professional editing, cover design, interior print, and ebook formatting services, and advice possible at affordable and fair prices to give your book the best chance of success.
If money is tight and you’re going into debt with the intent of making money through self-publishing a book, then I recommend reconsidering. If it’s been your dream to publish a book, you can afford to invest in it, and you’ve done your research, go for it.
No two books are ever really the same. You may never get back what you invested in a book, or it could earn you a tidy profit for many years.
If you’re a potential author, it’s been your dream to publish a book, you don’t care if you sell a single copy or a thousand copies, and you have space in the budget, hybrid or vanity publishing is an option you could consider.
Traditional Publishing Pathway
The traditional publishing pathway is the easiest publishing pathway to explain, and the hardest to achieve. There are no exact statistics about how many authors successfully land a traditional publishing deal, but it’s probably close to 1% of authors who attempt it.
When you traditionally publish a book, you essentially sell your book and all rights to your book to a publisher. While it’s not impossible to achieve without a book agent or literary agent, achieving a traditional publishing deal will be closer once you secure an agent first, as experienced agents often have established relationships with big publishers.
Once you sign a contract with a traditional publisher, they’ll handle all costs and marketing associated with creating and publishing your book. They’ll provide editing, cover design, print and ebook formatting, publishing support, and marketing. You pay for nothing. They’ve decided that your book and you are worth investing in.
In return, you’ll sign a publishing contract which gives them the rights to publish your book, and the first compensation you’ll receive is typically in the form of an advance. How significant an advance is based on how many books they think you’ll sell. The bigger the author, the bigger the advance.
Now, an advance isn’t free cash. If your advance is $10k, then you won’t start receiving any royalty payments until your publisher has earned back that $10k advance through book sales, and how quickly you make it will depend on your royalty payment agreement and contract.
Traditional publishers have a vested interest in the success of your book. They choose to publish only a fraction of the books that cross their path and invest heavily in them financially, so it makes sense that they want them to succeed.
The Self-Publishing Pathway
When you self-publish a book, you are in charge of each aspect of the self-publishing process, but that doesn’t mean that you need to do everything yourself. You can either go the DIY route or hire a professional publishing service.
At Author Services Australia, we are a self-publishing services provider. We provide comprehensive self-publishing services to Australian authors, including editing, proofreading, print and ebook formatting, cover design, and pre- and post-publishing support, guidance, and resources.
What we don’t do is publish your book for you. We don’t open accounts on Amazon KDP or IngramSpark Publishing. We don’t retain any rights to your book, and we don’t take any future royalties. Once you pay for your self-publishing services, you receive your files, and you’re free to publish your book anywhere and however you like.
Ultimately, once you self-publish, the success or failure of your book is up to you and your marketing skills or budget.
Self-publishing can be a steep learning curve, time-consuming, and involves an upfront investment by the author if they’re paying for self-publishing services. However, it can also be highly rewarding. You’re 100% in control of your book and concept. You retain 100% ownership of your book and receive 100% of the royalties.
You’ll need to do some research, open self-publishing accounts, purchase ISBNs, and upload and review files.
It’s your book, done your way, and its success or failure is ultimately your responsibility.
The Hybrid Publishing and Vanity Publishing Pathway
This is where publishing starts to merge between traditional publishing and self-publishing.
Hybrid publishing and vanity publishing often involve you, as the author, paying all the upfront costs for publishing your book, including editing, print and ebook formatting, and cover design, often as part of a package that includes distribution, marketing, and publishing.
Now, the most significant difference here between self-publishing and using a hybrid/vanity publisher is that almost all vanity publishers will also take a percentage of any royalty earned on a book sale and retain publishing rights to your book. Most, but not all, hybrid publishers do the same. However, there is a caveat to this. Not all hybrid publishers take a royalty.
Some hybrid publishers guarantee the author 100% of their royalties. However, you’ll need to discuss this with the publisher and carefully review the contract before accepting it.
Most legitimate hybrid publishers won’t accept every book that comes through the way. They’re selective about the books they publish and want to maintain high standards. This is a good sign.
Ultimately, you’ll need to do a little bit of detective work whenever you’re considering using any hybrid publisher.
Look at their Google reviews. Google their name and add scam to the end of the search.
Check out the books and authors they’ve worked with in the past.
Read every contract and seek professional advice if you’re concerned about anything in it, and ask questions. Any and every question you can imagine.
Some great questions to ask any potential hybrid publisher include:
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- Will you retain any rights to my completed book? If so, for how long, and in which formats, markets, and territories?
- Will you take any of my royalties? If so, what percentage, and how does the royalty breakdown work?
- If you provide marketing, what does it include, and can I see examples of your marketing network?
- How is your distribution network different from that of Amazon KDP or IngramSpark?
- What additional support are you providing me, both pre-publication and post-publication?
- Will you publish my book on my Amazon KDP/IngramSpark accounts, or your own?
- Are there any fees associated with terminating the contract?
- Will you supply me with all source files, including the cover design, editing, and print and ebook interior formatting for my book?
- How often do you pay royalties, and are there any caps or fees on royalty payments?
- Ask them whether they use licensed fonts and images in creating the book, and, if so, request copies of the licences.
- Ask them who is purchasing the ISBN and whose name it will be registered under.
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As I mentioned at the start, I didn’t want this to be an article bashing all hybrid publishers, as some legitimate hybrid publishers perform a niche role within the greater publishing landscape. However, discerning the difference between a legitimate and honest hybrid publisher and a shady vanity publisher masquerading as a legitimate hybrid publisher can be extremely difficult, almost impossible for new authors excited about finally publishing their first book.
As a general rule, vanity publishers will accept any book or author. They’ll publish anything, promise authors the world, and ultimately deliver very little. They’ll promise you everything under the sun to get you to commit to one of their special publication packages.
They rely on excessive pre-publication charges and their royalty share to make money from their authors. New authors do almost all of the promotion and marketing, then lose a large percentage of their royalties to their “publisher,” who ultimately doesn’t care or deliver anything the author couldn’t have gotten from self-publishing.
One of the most significant issues with vanity publishers is their lack of transparency on royalty payments. Let’s look at an example book and how most vanity publishers take their royalty payments from authors.
Using Amazon KDP’s Royalty Calculator, we can estimate the royalties an author may earn for their book. For this example, I used a standard 6 x 9 paperback, 200 pages, black-and-white interior, with a retail price of $19.99 on Amazon.com.au.
As you can see above, after Amazon’s royalty, printing and shipping costs, an Australian author can expect to earn $5.17 per book sale if they price their book at $19.99.
Not bad. If you wanted to be a little competitive, you could drop the retail price.
If you dropped the retail price to $14.99, you’d be a little more competitive within your category, potentially sell more books, and rank higher, getting more sales, but take home only $2.17 per sale from each book sold.
Now, this is where vanity publishing really starts to cross the line into ripping off its customers. They don’t want your book to be competitive, so they’ll most likely advise you to set your book’s retail prices high. Probably something like this:
Now, a vanity publisher is going to take a percentage of your royalties. However, what I’ve learned from looking at a few different vanity publisher contracts over the years is that they take their royalty first. They might tell you that they only take a 10%, 20%, and in most cases, 30% royalty, but they’re taking that royalty off the retail price.
If your book is listed at $29.99 and they take a 30% royalty, that’s $8.97. Amazon KDP then deducts its royalty and printing costs, leaving you, as the author, with a royalty of $2.20 per book sale.
While you’re running around, selling books, promoting and marketing them on social media, and ordering physical books to sell at events, they’re taking a huge percentage of every sale and doing very little.
Once you start asking questions or seeking more clarity about royalties, they throw numbers and costs at you but answer very little. If you published through a hybrid or vanity publisher and you want to know how much your average royalty per book sale is on Amazon, just use the Amazon KDP Calculator, put in your book’s details, trim size, page count, paper type, and retail price. You’ll instantly know how much you should be making per sale, and how much your “publisher” is taking.
Leaving A Vanity or Hybrid Publisher and Republishing Your Book
I wish I could say that if you don’t like the deal, just leave, but unfortunately for authors, most of these dodgy publishing contracts are designed so that breaking them will cost you more money.
At Author Services Australia, we deal with at least one author a week going through the struggle of breaking away from these scam publishers, attempting to get their intellectual property back, and even dealing with companies that go bankrupt, leaving people’s books still online for sale. Still, authors have no way of accessing their book or taking control of it again.
In almost all cases, the only way to get your book back online for sale after dealing with one of these scam companies is to republish it under a new title and ISBN. If you can prove to Amazon KDP and other self-publishing companies that you’re the author and you hold the rights to the book, they’ll allow you to republish it, but with a new ISBN.
Essentially, you’ll be starting over, which is why I suggested asking about the source files. If you have the source files to the finished book interior, covers, and manuscript, republishing will be painful, but not nearly as expensive as if you have to get all that stuff again.
As you’re going through the pre-publishing process, ask for all source files. If they edit your manuscript, ask them for the final edited version in a Word document. If they design your cover, ask them for the source files, such as PSDs. When they format your print book, ask them for a copy of the source files they used. PDFs of your cover and interior are great to have, but they’re not easy to edit later.
When you publish a book, each format is assigned an ISBN. Once you hit that publish button, that ISBN and book title, paperback, ebook, hardcover, audiobook, are linked together forever. Even if you manage to unpublish a book on Amazon, they will keep a record of it online forever. It’ll just say unavailable. So, republishing with a new title and cover is well worth it to distinguish from the previous copy.
Without source files, we typically need to reformat the interiors, redesign the covers, and add your new ISBNs, and you’ll be ready to publish your book again. However, we also keep design source files and make them available to authors.
Vanity Publishing: What Are You Paying For and What Is It Really Costing You? | Conclusion
One thing that I can’t stress enough before dealing with any hybrid or vanity publishing company is to do your due diligence. Publishing a book for the first time can be exciting, but don’t let the excitement of publishing a book overwhelm your decision-making process.
My final thought. There are legitimate hybrid publishing companies out there that care about the authors they work with and provide a legitimate publishing experience for authors who don’t want to self-publish but can’t land a traditional publishing agreement.
If you have any questions about the self-publishing process, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
At Author Services Australia, we support Australian and New Zealand self-published authors and writers with a full range of affordable self-publishing services, including ghostwriting, copyediting, developmental editing, proofreading, ebook and paperback formatting, book cover design, children’s book illustrations, graphic design services, Amazon KDP Keyword and Category Research, animated book cover reveal videos, beta reading, and social media and marketing.
