So you have a book ready to publish but what publishing route do you choose? Two choices include self-publishing and vanity publishing, but what do these two terms actually mean and which is best?
Vanity publishing refers to any publisher who publishes a book for an author for a fee. They produce ‘bound’ copies of your book. The reason an author usually chooses a vanity publisher is for, as the name suggests, personal reasons. For example, you may want to produce a book about your family. This usually means that you only want to produce a few copies. In essence, the book is aimed at a limited audience. Vanity publishers will charge you for this service.
What vanity publishers offer is the full publishing experience where you can hold in your hand a bound hardback book of your own making. However, it is important to note that vanity publishers have no relationship with bookshops, unlike traditional publishers.
Digital technology has opened up the publishing world to each individual author and writer out there, and they are now able to produce and publish print books and eBooks independently, creating the name ‘indie author.’
Even though you self-publish, you can still access a wide range of services to help you. These include, editing, formatting and book cover design. However, you as an author still retain creative control. If you self-publish, the 'do it yourself route' through the entire process in creating your book will be free.
Print on demand is how self-publishers create a bound book. When you submit a converted word.doc file as a pdf to a print on demand company such as Blurb or CreateSpace that file is kept and stored, then when a customer orders your book from the internet the book is printed, so in essence a book at a time. This means that there is no need to bulk print and buy books that you then need to sell in order to make your money back and a profit. This is unlike vanity publishing in which several books are printed at the same time.
One of the many advantages of self-publishing is the relative ease of creating an eBook. Once again, you retain creative control and can decide which platform to publish your book and then who to distribute it with. There are many platforms out there including Smashwords and Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, which revolutionised digital book distribution. You need to simply convert your book file into their preferred format, each platform seems to use different ones, and then your book can be sold on the internet through various sales channels, the most popular being Amazon. Nearly everyone searching for a book will go to Amazon first.
So both vanity publishing and self-publishing can both have benefits to the individual author. You just need to find out which will be the best road for you in publishing your book and ‘getting it out there.’
