RE: Self publishing

["Laurel Hickey" <lhickey -at- 2morrow -dot- bc -dot- ca>]

For a good definition of the terms, try
http://www.sfwa.org/beware/subsidypublishers.html from the Science Fiction
and Fantasy Writers of America. 

For my own purposes, the main distinction between self publishing and
vanity/subsidy publishing is if the author covers all or some of the costs
incured in what that company does to publish the book AND that company shows
up as the publisher, then that company is a vanity or subsidy publisher.

In self publishing, the author can farm out all aspects of the book from
layout, editing, printing, marketing and distribution and it's still self
publishing. I've done work for several authors who essentially are small
presses publishing themselves and co-authors. One did it to keep his books
in print and got the rights back from the original publishers. He's now
branched out to one other author, also with a substantial backlist of books
published primarily in Asia. Of course, now we're into new territory in
defining what is the difference between a self published author and a small
press!

I had mentioned Trafford before as POD and not vanity ... and now think they
fall under the category of POD vanity press ... based on the definition that
"I'M" comfortable with. Others may have different comfort levels.

>From their website, it wasn't clear as to who showed up as the publisher so
I emailed them saying that I have my own block of ISBN numbers (I do) and my
own press name (ditto). 

Very quick response from "Trafford Publishing On-Demand Publishing Service":
in general, they use their own ISBN numbers for all the POD stuff and --
from the ISBN at least -- they show up as the publisher. You can use them as
a printer with only your own ISBN and press name, but you get all the books
for your own distribution. They said: "If you are purchasing the Legacy
Package (whereby you will be buying books from us and Trafford will not be
selling to the public or bookstores), then we can certainly use your ISBN
instead of the Trafford ISBN, and in fact, we can remove the majority of
Trafford references on the book."

Remove the 'majority' of Trafford references???? 

They offer some other options, none of which really fit my comfort level of
just paying a company to print MY book on demand and ship it off, with all
upfront and marketing costs covered by me and per-book costs covered in the
sale price. And, I don't see the problem with my company showing up as the
publisher AND the POD company being listed under fulfillment of orders or
some such.

Anyone done this?

Sigh.

-------------------------------------
Laurel Hickey
2morrow writing & document design
lhickey -at- 2morrow -dot- bc -dot- ca
http://www.2morrow.bc.ca


Well, that's exactly what I was talking about. Apparently "subsidy 
publishing" a neologism to take the imagined sting out of "vanity 
publishing"? Maybe it was coined by some marketing weenie in the vanity 
publishing business? But you've got to explain it, whereas if you use 
the standard, traditional, well understood term, you wouldn't have to 
explain it <g>


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