There are some cases where self-publishing makes sense, but going to a vanity press never makes sense—remember, money flows to the writer. Think about self-publishing if:
1) you have a huge built in audience for something that no one who isn’t already familiar with it will go to a bookstore to buy. (For instance, you have several thousand dedicated readers for your post-apocalyptic webcomic that concerns the inner workings of the sanitation industry, but only sanitation industry professionals who also read SF get the jokes.)
2) you want to publish something for a select group, but you’re not interested in wider exposure or making money. (For instance, a family genealogy, a book dedicated to local history for the town historical society, or a packet of historical documents for a class that you teach.)
In most other cases, traditional publishing will reach a far broader audience than you can on your own. (Although you’ll have to do most of the publicity yourself.) There are some cases where a book is so nontraditional that no publisher will touch it, but it actually does have an audience. A number of SF and fantasy books like that have started out as self-published, but usually once they’ve established a clear audience, they’re picked up by a traditional publisher, which can expand that audience and maximize the book’s reach. Examples of genre-related books that started out as self-published and went on to become traditional best-sellers include The Celestine Prophecies and the Left Behind series. But for the most part, if a book is well-written and has an audience, you will eventually be able to find a legitimate publisher to take it on.
Resources for Avoiding Scams
There are some excellent resources online for checking on if a publisher is legitimate or not. (I personally don’t put much trust in publications like Writer’s Digest geared to newbies, but some genre writer’s organizations, most notably SFWA (www.sfwa.org) do a great job educating their members and new writers alike.)
Preditors and Editors (http://pred-ed.com/) is a frequently updated list of markets, agents, and contests with annotations by writers as to which can be trusted and which to avoid.
The publishing scams page at SFF.net, a terrific website geared to writers and fans of science fiction and fantasy, is another useful resource on a site filled with useful resources.
Writer Beware is SFWA’s site for alerts about specific scams, as well as general advice on avoiding scams. If you’d like a more detailed version of this segment, that’s the place I’d recommend to start.
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An earlier version of this essay was published on DailyKos on July 23, 2006. The original essay, along with other publishing-related essays, is archived at www.swordsmith.com/essays.html
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Leigh Grossman teaches in the English Department at the University of Connecticut and is the president of Swordsmith Productions (www.swordsmith.com), a book development and book production company. Grossman is the author of fourteen books, including fantasy novels The Green Lion and The Golden Thorns. He has reviewed books for Absolute Magnitude, Horror magazine, and Wavelengths. Previously, he was a production supervisor at Avon Books and an editor at Byron Preiss Visual Publications. He lives in northeast Connecticut with his wife, web developer Rowena Grossman, and their daughter Cara.
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