Do you want to get published? Or do you want to make money writing? What if you want both?
To celebrate my book, I will be making a series of posts about Publishing and today, I'll talk about the different types of publishers present in the modern publishing industry.
A lot of us dream of becoming a published author and yet we find ourselves hesitating from the fast growing scenes of self-publishing. But can you really keep holding on to the faint hope of ultimately catching a traditional publisher's eyes and getting that two thousand and thirty second pitch finally accepted? What if you belong to that percentage of people who feel insecure about your own writing and shy away from pitching to publishers proactively.
Let alone having exceptional talents and the necessary streetsmarts that it takes to win over a publisher, the effort spent in making your novel stand out in the crowds of other equally extraordinary titles soon becomes a harder challenge in this competitive world. That's exactly when one starts considering getting self published.
Now the problem with self publishing is credibility and quality. Let me explain. Yes, of course you will not publish anything substandard nor would you let go of your work until you reach that level of perfection that only the best of critics might dismiss, but you still cannot expect to do that kind of scrutiny throughout every part of the publication process.
While you may have a beautiful story, if your cover fails to draw enough attention, your book would be silently ignored despite the best marketing. Imagine if you flounder at promoting it to the right circle? A few kind relatives and friends who might sympathise with you will buy a copy, but your book will never reach the eager readership it so deserves. A similar dilemma happens in case of faulty formatting.
This is where hybrid publishing companies come into the game. They offer a middle ground to authors, in between the unattainable traditional publisher and the slightly more demanding self publishing mode, they help you to bridge across the two modes, by covering certain aspects like marketing or editing and publishing your book at the minimum costs possible. But you may not prefer this style, and which type of publication you choose depends completely upon you. Each of them have their own set of advantages and disadvantages.
Except one type of publishers. Vanity presses. Have no doubts about this type at all. These are unethical, cheating hypocrites who manage to pretend as a hybrid publisher and demand hefty amounts for doing the basic publishing requirements like editing or formatting while using print on demand, largely free platforms like Amazon KDP. No inventory means no need to store copies, hence the printing costs incurred are way lesser.
Either they ask authors to pay upfront without delivering any services whatsoever or they steal the copyrights to your work under some pretext and then harass you by threatening to destroy your work or pulling up legal offences. These are people with no conscience, who just want to earn money by deception and manipulation of inexperienced writers.
The worst part is this kind of shameful activities cannot be stopped either because they are unfortunately not illegal and they do not break any laws. It's like lying is not a crime but it is still extremely unethical. The vanity presses are the most despised and loathesome variety of publishers that one must avoid at all costs.
Look forward to my next post where I will discuss Amazon KDP in more details! Also, check out my book here, thanks!