Author: Gary Kessler (---.50.89.82.rlgh.grid.net)
Date: 09-30-02 08:26
Thought I should pin down what I meant by "objective publishing industry definitions" of the types of publishers, since John H. seems bent on skewing these definitions to serve the POD publisher he works (and, apparently, drums up business) for.
There are three types of publishers--traditional publishers, subsidiary publishers, and vanity publishers. The distinctions between them are based on up-front risk (who pays what when).
TRADITIONAL PUBLISHERS take all the up-front risk. When doing so, they, of course, have to be highly selective and they have made a decision completely outside the author's own interest that this book is a worthwhile investment. It is no wonder, therefore, that this is the most-sought-after form of publishing or that readers are more inclined to buy books that have gone through such a filter.
SUBSIDIARY PUBLISHERS take some of the up-front risk. This forces them also to be selective to the point of reasonable expectation that they not only will recoup their up-front limited investment, but that they also will turn an acceptable profit on top of that.
VANITY PUBLISHERS take none of the up-front risk. The author pays everything--usually with a profit padded in--up front. Since the vanity publisher is taking no risk (and usually is turning a profit whether or not any books are sold), they don't have to be selective, and it's completely pot luck for any reader considering buying a book produced this way.
None of the characteristics John H. provides above are accepted distinctions between categories of publishers--nor is the method of printing (preprint runs or POD production) a distinction between the categories.
By these standard definitions, Houghton Mifflin is a traditonal publisher, PublishAmerica is at the very bottom end of subsidiary publisher (it pays production costs up front, but it prices its books very high and selects--with a very low threshold--on the basis of high expectation of selling the minimum number of books needed--I've heard it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 copies--to clear a profit), and John H's Infinity is a vanity. There are other POD producers offering the same services as Infinity does for significantly lower up-front author cost (e.g., iUniverse at a $159 charge as compared with Infinity's $400 up front charge).
There are, of course, circumstances under which using a reasonably priced subsidiary or vanity publisher is the best solution to the situation (we in the WritersNet community are using such a publisher for our WritersNet Anthology--because it serves our unique needs best). But the savy author will know the options and why they pick what they do--and they will learn to assess the interests--often hidden--of those, like John H., who come on the board to sell a particular option.
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