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Sakura Publishing & Technologies

Marian Perera

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I have encountered many publishers and literary agents which charge reading fees in that time: not one of them had a good record of sales. It's a red flag.

I've only ever heard of one reputable literary agency which charged reading fees - Scott Meredith's. He even defended the practice in his book Writing To Sell.

But to quote James Macdonald:

They had two sides of the house: one where they kept the big name published authors (who weren't charged fees, by the way), and the other side of the house where they read manuscripts for a fee, holding out the possiblity of being represented by Scott Meredith.

In all the years that Scott was in business (he's dead now), I think that one, perhaps two, authors who came in the reading-fee side wound up getting represented. The rest were cash cows. The agents who worked on the legitimate side weren't the same guys as the ones who worked on the fee side.

So even with the one exception, it would not have been good business sense for writers to pay reading fees.
 

amergina

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It's obvious you just don't want to hear that authors have a responsibility to invest in their books they write.

I do invest in the books I write. That's what writing is--an investment of time and talent.

You want writers to give you the fruits of their labor for free?
 

djv124

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This sentence contradicts itself. Badly.



You've done nothing of the sort. Below, from your submission guidelines, as of 9:49pm tonight EDT:

and

I won't get into the trade/traditional press semantics here. This post seems argument enough against your understanding of and/or your plans for the field.

No "traditional" publishing for you.

I must have missed this post on here. Perhaps it was because I was caught up with the other individual on here talking about Sakura.

Regarding what you see as a contradiction... When Sakura started out, it was purely service based. I didn't even know what a vanity press was initially, so when I realized that is what Sakura essentially was being categorized as, I didn't have a problem with it until I started reading about how much people hate vanity presses. I didn't understand why until I started seeing and reading about all the nightmare stories with vanities. So when I started getting manuscripts sent to our publishing house, I wanted to stay away from all the earmarks that make vanity presses so bad, which include ripping authors off in a million little ways. We didn't do that. We were always up front and honest with what we did, and in that sense, I suppose we were trying our best to be like the better traditional pubs out there. But we weren't like the traditional pubs in two ways and two ways only, and that was we charged for publication and we used POD for book prints exclusively. We did give advances to some authors and didn't charge them, and not all authors we published we charged, so we kept walking the line between vanity and traditional. Now we have crossed that line to being traditional.
But if you want to gripe because we charge reading fees, that's okay. There are plenty of great traditional presses that charge reading fees. I named a few to the other lady who had a problem with that. But once we accept a manuscript, NO part of what we do is charged anymore. I can guarantee that.
So, at least in my mind and I hope other writers and pubs who understand why little presses like ours charge for reading fees (and one day we won't, I promise), we have finally been able to reach our dream of becoming a traditional press. I realize everybody on these forums essentially adopts a super critical approach to any publisher out there and that's fine, as it forces pubs to sharpen their game, especially when absolute write shows up on page one of Google anytime you look up a publisher. But please consider the job that pubs have in this day and age and realize that not all of us are complete jerks and looking to rip authors off. Some of us actually want to enter into a business relationship with authors and help them out, believe it or not. And I feel that we've done that even when we were a vanity press not so long ago. But now, I am hoping we can do it on a much more exciting level.
Stay classy, keep critical, and have a heart, that's what I think. And on a quick final note, I hope to enter into more discussion about what writers want to see with publishers and not see and how we can improve what we're doing.
 

Marian Perera

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So when I started getting manuscripts sent to our publishing house, I wanted to stay away from all the earmarks that make vanity presses so bad, which include ripping authors off in a million little ways.

"Within a few more hours Derek wrote back letting me know his "company would definitely be interested" and he gave me a price breakdown: I would need to pay him $225 for editing, $150 for cover design, $600 for illustrations, another $150 for ebook conversion, and an additional $625 to put up a webpage promoting my book, with the grand total coming to $1750..."

From here.

We did give advances to some authors and didn't charge them, and not all authors we published we charged, so we kept walking the line between vanity and traditional.
PublishAmerica paid all its authors advances. That didn't make it any less of a vanity press.

And some vanity presses try to throw up a smokescreen by offering one or two authors a "traditional" contract, so they can claim that this makes them a hybrid. But if a press charges any authors for any aspect of production, it's not walking a line - it's a vanity press.

There are plenty of great traditional presses that charge reading fees.
No, there aren't. You couldn't even name the supposedly "HUNDREDS" which charged reading fees. The only ones you could come up with were a few specialized poetry journals which charged a contest entry fee.

But once we accept a manuscript, NO part of what we do is charged anymore. I can guarantee that.
Unless you encourage the author to buy 500 - 2000 copies of their own book.

Some of us actually want to enter into a business relationship with authors and help them out, believe it or not. And I feel that we've done that even when we were a vanity press not so long ago.
"Within 24 hours of sending the proposal, my pseudonym had secured a book publishing contract with Sakura Publishing based on one single poem composed of nothing but gibberish. Derek did not need to see the rest of the poems nor did he need to know anything about me, other than that I had some money."

From here, again.
 
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From that same page that QoS links to above:

Q. What is the royalty schedule for book sales?

A. "I can't even begin to tell you what the profit would be per tier because we don't have a retail price listing and we can't get a retail listing until the book is completed, because it all depends on the cost of printing." (And bladdy blah blah blah. Okay, I'm supposed to sign this contract and pay him $1750 and he can't even explain to me what the royalty schedule is? Derek continues . . .) "You get paid every month a royalty check for sales past $100, which means you must accumulate up to $100 dollars in sales each month to receive a check." (For the books that I paid him to design, I need to wait until he sells $100 worth of them to get a few pennies back. Wow.)

Blimey.

So authors are expected to sign contracts which don't specify what royalty rate they'll receive on sales; and even if they do get told of their royalty structure, if a book earns royalties of $99.99 in a month the author gets nothing. And it's possible, looking at that explanation, that royalties don't accrue. If that's the case, that $99.99 would disappear, as far as the author was concerned.

It's nonsense to suggest a publisher can't work out the retail price until a book is completed. And even if the publisher couldn't, the publisher should still be able to say what royalty is payable on sale.
 

LindaJeanne

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I do need to correct one point in that link -- the author has confused Wordpress.org (the software) with Wordpress.com (the free hosting service). The fact the site is "powered by WordPress" does not mean that it is hosted on WordPress.com.

Most hosting services (and I'm sure GoDaddy's is included in this), will let you install the WordPress software in a single click. Customizing it for each customer can take as little as fifteen minutes, if the customizations are minimal.

So, his original guess of the GoDaddy hosting is probably correct, not his latter conclusion of using the free WordPress.com hosting.

(This is neither here nor there, of course, because none of this materially affects the article. But the WordPress confusion is a pet peeve of mine, so I needed to comment.)


PS -- anyone who read the link before the author posted quotes from Derek's response to the article should go back and read the response.
 
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djv124

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First things, first,
I completely respect where any writer is coming from regarding what publishers do and don't do. I get that this forum is a lovely place for writers to vent, complain, and point out the general garbage practices that publishers who aren't reputable adopt in order to scam authors out of their hard work. And certainly by all means people are allowed to have their opinions, good or bad, about any publisher. So I'm going to express mine here, and hopefully that's okay.

For starters, I've addressed everything involving Chicago poety and CJ Laity in my very first post. Sakura Publishing charged fees up until recently for services rendered. We often explained to authors up front what those costs were, but that didn't mean we would accept their manuscripts. CJ left that huge part out with our conversation, the part where I told him he would have to work with us a great deal to get his work up to par to even be accepted for publication, not just by our publishing house, but any publishing house. I was being a nice guy, thinking he was an actual author needing help. He instead just wanted to dive bomb us and paint us to look like money grubbers. Again, not going to go over this one anymore, it's a past issue for our company and a moot point overall. Why QOS on here is bringing this all up again after I've already discussed it, especially when it doesn't even apply to what we do anyhow currently, is just trying to drudge up anything negative about us that can be said at this point. Or at least, that is how I feel about it being brought up after I explained what happened there.

Regarding reading fees, yes, there are cases for and against it, some good, some bad. I had given QOS on here a few very highly reputable presses that charge reading fees. Sorry QOS, I don't have time to list the hundreds of presses that charge reading fees. And I have explained why we do this, simply that we are too small a press to do otherwise. And I am sure we will reach a point in a year or two where we are not going to have to charge a reading fee. But for now, we are, and that is the ONLY fee involved with our publishing house. It's a point of endless debate and one that I am not going to justify any further to anyone on here. It takes hours and hours to read every manuscript and give a response, and unlike the major pubs, we simply don't have the staff to do it at this time. I know as a whole the writing community doesn't accept this, but I would venture to say that most writers have never been on the other side of the publishing process either.

As for asking authors to buy books, you know, I did listen to QOS on that one. I took that verbiage out of our website. I don't want to give the wrong impression of why we wrote that and it's a hard one to get through to a lot of writers for some reason. Put it to you another way, as a writer, I am currently seeking out publication with various presses and have even been offered a few contracts for my writing. So far, I'm weighing options. But one thing I would have no problem doing no matter WHERE I end up, is buying copies of my book to spread around to everyone I could. I think that's a smart approach, especially when I have been building my author platform and want to reward those who have been helping me achieve my dream for some time now. I simply can't understand why this would makes our house a vanity press because we've suggested to writers that this would be a good idea marketing wise for themselves to consider. If a writer has sent me a great manuscript but tells me they are poorer than crap and can't afford to buy a single book, if the manuscript is amazing, I'm still going to publish it. But from a publisher's standpoint, especially a SMALL press like ours, it's really encouraging to know that the author has a marketing plan that will compliment what we do for them. Publishing is a business that has changed radically over the past ten years and this is one of those points that so many people who write hold onto an old way of thinking, i.e, that the author is supposed to just send in their manuscript, watch it get accepted, sit back and relax, and do nothing else to support their writing endeavor. I firmly believe that this would be a mistake for any author to really think this kind of thinking translates into selling their books. It rarely does.
Still, with the buying books issue, we don't profit off it one bit, as I've already explained on this thread. The money goes to us and we in turn give it to our printer and that's that. How we make a penny off that is beyond me. So encouraging our authors to help themselves isn't something I can see as being a negative.
Again, all interesting points on this thread and board. I can sense so much frustration with so many people on here and that is why I suppose absolute write is on page one of Google now for every publisher you google, perhaps as it should be. I just hope I've cleared up some things about our publishing house. And in case any of you were not keeping score here, Sakura Publishing WAS a vanity press, although one that didn't adhere to the shady pond scum practices of 98% of all vanities out there, but now Sakura Publishing has switched over to being a small indie press that doesn't charge any fees ONCE your manuscript has been accepted for publication. We do charge a reading fee, and a small one at that. We are encouraging any author to submit to us their best work, and we hope that said authors will have some kind of a marketing plan in place, whether that is to buy books, have a decent author platform in place, or anything else they can think of that makes sense in promoting their book. AND their marketing plan will not be the ONLY plan in place, as we will have one for them too.
Hopefully that works for some of you on here.
 

Marian Perera

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CJ left that huge part out with our conversation, the part where I told him he would have to work with us a great deal to get his work up to par to even be accepted for publication, not just by our publishing house, but any publishing house.

Yes, I imagine a poem like:

"There is a Cat under the Mat
Can You believe THAT?"

would need all your time and attention to polish until it was up to par.

Why QOS on here is bringing this all up again after I've already discussed it, especially when it doesn't even apply to what we do anyhow currently, is just trying to drudge up anything negative about us that can be said at this point.
Because you keep trying to paint yourself as a "nice guy" just out to help authors, even when you were charging them up to $1750 to print gibberish.

Regarding reading fees, yes, there are cases for and against it, some good, some bad. I had given QOS on here a few very highly reputable presses that charge reading fees. Sorry QOS, I don't have time to list the hundreds of presses that charge reading fees.
And yet you have time to write these long screeds trying to defend your practices.

The reason you can't list any more than those few poetry journals is because there aren't hundreds of reputable presses which charge reading fees.

As for asking authors to buy books, you know, I did listen to QOS on that one. I took that verbiage out of our website.
You may have taken the verbiage out of your website, but is it a practice you'll discontinue?

But one thing I would have no problem doing no matter WHERE I end up, is buying copies of my book to spread around to everyone I could.
You've stated that in the past, authors begged (or should that be BEGGED?) to pay you for your services. That doesn't mean paying a vanity press is good business sense for authors. Likewise, even if you're willing to buy 500 copies of your own books, it doesn't matter. A press which requires or encourages this is a vanity press.

I think that's a smart approach, especially when I have been building my author platform and want to reward those who have been helping me achieve my dream for some time now.
A reputable trade publisher would give an author a case of free books (if the author wanted to "reward" people with them) and would not require the author to become a salesperson.

I simply can't understand why this would makes our house a vanity press because we've suggested to writers that this would be a good idea marketing wise for themselves to consider.
If a press accepts money from writers for any part of production, that makes it a vanity press.

Still, with the buying books issue, we don't profit off it one bit, as I've already explained on this thread. The money goes to us and we in turn give it to our printer and that's that. How we make a penny off that is beyond me. So encouraging our authors to help themselves isn't something I can see as being a negative.
I'm sure encouraging authors to pay you isn't a negative for you.

How it's a positive for authors to wind up in the red thanks to buying up to 2000 copies of their own books, so they can now take on what should be the publisher's responsibility of selling those books, is not clear.

And in case any of you were not keeping score here, Sakura Publishing WAS a vanity press, although one that didn't adhere to the shady pond scum practices of 98% of all vanities out there
"$225 for editing, $150 for cover design, $600 for illustrations, another $150 for ebook conversion, and an additional $625 to put up a webpage promoting my book, with the grand total coming to $1750..."

^ What Sakura Publishing charged. I'll leave that to speak for itself.
 

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For starters, I've addressed everything involving Chicago poety and CJ Laity in my very first post.

I don't recall seeing this issue addressed:

Q. What is the royalty schedule for book sales?

A. "I can't even begin to tell you what the profit would be per tier because we don't have a retail price listing and we can't get a retail listing until the book is completed, because it all depends on the cost of printing." (And bladdy blah blah blah. Okay, I'm supposed to sign this contract and pay him $1750 and he can't even explain to me what the royalty schedule is? Derek continues . . .) "You get paid every month a royalty check for sales past $100, which means you must accumulate up to $100 dollars in sales each month to receive a check." (For the books that I paid him to design, I need to wait until he sells $100 worth of them to get a few pennies back. Wow.)

Do you now include in your contract specific information about the royalties you pay?

Do you still only pay royalties once $100 or more is due? If so, do your authors have to accrue that amount each month, or do you roll over the amount unpaid to the next month and the next, so that all royalties are eventually paid (assuming the author earns more than $100)?

Regarding reading fees, yes, there are cases for and against it, some good, some bad. I had given QOS on here a few very highly reputable presses that charge reading fees. Sorry QOS, I don't have time to list the hundreds of presses that charge reading fees.

I don't think there are ever good reasons to charge reading fees: in my experience they are always a big red flag. If a publisher can't afford staff to read its slush pile it can always close to submissions; and if it can't afford to read slush, it can't afford to edit, design or sell its books, either.

It takes hours and hours to read every manuscript and give a response, and unlike the major pubs, we simply don't have the staff to do it at this time. I know as a whole the writing community doesn't accept this, but I would venture to say that most writers have never been on the other side of the publishing process either.

It does take hours to read through the submissions received but if you don't do that, you don't find the books you publish.

It's a problem all publishers face. But if you're properly capitalised, and publish books well, it's something you accommodate.

You can try to discredit my opinion by suggesting that "the writing community doesn't accept this", but I'm not just a writer (I have over thirty five titles published now, so I'm not doing too bad): I have worked in publishing for over thirty years now. And in all that time, not one of the good trade publishers I've encountered have charged reading fees.

As for asking authors to buy books, you know, I did listen to QOS on that one. I took that verbiage out of our website. I don't want to give the wrong impression of why we wrote that and it's a hard one to get through to a lot of writers for some reason. Put it to you another way, as a writer, I am currently seeking out publication with various presses and have even been offered a few contracts for my writing. So far, I'm weighing options. But one thing I would have no problem doing no matter WHERE I end up, is buying copies of my book to spread around to everyone I could. I think that's a smart approach, especially when I have been building my author platform and want to reward those who have been helping me achieve my dream for some time now. I simply can't understand why this would makes our house a vanity press because we've suggested to writers that this would be a good idea marketing wise for themselves to consider.

You don't have to charge your authors upfront to be a vanity press.

A vanity press is one which earns most of its money from the authors it publishers, rather than from selling the books it publishes onto new readers (or bookshops).

That means that if you charge your writers for publishing services you're a vanity press.

It also means that if you ask your writers to buy large numbers of their own books you're a vanity press.

It doesn't matter why you expect your authors to buy their own books from you: just having that requirement makes you a vanity press.

Publishing is a business that has changed radically over the past ten years and this is one of those points that so many people who write hold onto an old way of thinking, i.e, that the author is supposed to just send in their manuscript, watch it get accepted, sit back and relax, and do nothing else to support their writing endeavor. I firmly believe that this would be a mistake for any author to really think this kind of thinking translates into selling their books. It rarely does.

As I've said before (and I think perhaps even in this thread), the only thing constant in publishing is change. It's always changing.

Good publishers still don't require their authors to buy their own books for resale. In fact, they specifically forbid it in the contracts their authors sign.

Suggesting that your requirement that your authors buy their own books for resale is proof that you're on the cutting edge of publishing simply shows that you're not selling enough books to readers to make your business viable, so you're taking money from your authors instead.

Sakura Publishing WAS a vanity press, although one that didn't adhere to the shady pond scum practices of 98% of all vanities out there, but now Sakura Publishing has switched over to being a small indie press that doesn't charge any fees ONCE your manuscript has been accepted for publication.

Instead it charges reading fees, and asks its authors to buy their own books. That's still a vanity press.

We do charge a reading fee, and a small one at that.

If it's so small, why bother charging it?

We are encouraging any author to submit to us their best work, and we hope that said authors will have some kind of a marketing plan in place, whether that is to buy books, have a decent author platform in place, or anything else they can think of that makes sense in promoting their book. AND their marketing plan will not be the ONLY plan in place, as we will have one for them too.
Hopefully that works for some of you on here.

It's not how good publishing works. You can write as many words as you like about this, but you're not going to change that.
 

Round Two

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First things, first,
Regarding reading fees, yes, there are cases for and against it, some good, some bad. I had given QOS on here a few very highly reputable presses that charge reading fees. Sorry QOS, I don't have time to list the hundreds of presses that charge reading fees.

No matter how much you'd like to insist to the contrary and no matter how many times you plead you don't have enough time to list "the hundreds of small presses that charge reading fees," one thing will remain indisputably true -- there aren't hundreds of them. The examples you gave previously don't even really support your argument. The FACT is, it is non-standard practice. Period. Not just for large publishing houses, but for small houses, too. The reason you can't name any isn't because you don't have time, it's because they don't exist.

And I have explained why we do this, simply that we are too small a press to do otherwise. And I am sure we will reach a point in a year or two where we are not going to have to charge a reading fee. But for now, we are, and that is the ONLY fee involved with our publishing house. It's a point of endless debate and one that I am not going to justify any further to anyone on here. It takes hours and hours to read every manuscript and give a response, and unlike the major pubs, we simply don't have the staff to do it at this time. I know as a whole the writing community doesn't accept this, but I would venture to say that most writers have never been on the other side of the publishing process either.

I see from your answer here that you've got one of two problems. Not sure which one it is. If you take "hours and hours to read every manuscript and give a response" you're doing it wrong. Really, really wrong. A good editor handling acquisitions will know, almost immediately to stop reading 95% of submissions (maybe that percentage is even higher). It's not hard to tell when a book isn't fit for consideration on page 1, sometimes it might take until page 10, but certainly it does not require reading the whole book. If you're doing that, you're wasting a HUGE amount of time.

The other option is that you aren't actually reading all of the submissions, which would make sense, but then you lose your argument (no matter how wrong) for why you're charging a reading fee.

Before you wonder if I just haven't been on the publishing process side--I've got 15 years in the industry, have started two publishing companies from scratch that I've sold to larger companies, and have relationships with publishing peers from across the spectrum. Your assertions don't gel with mine or with those of the people around me.
 

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I see from your answer here that you've got one of two problems. Not sure which one it is. If you take "hours and hours to read every manuscript and give a response" you're doing it wrong. Really, really wrong.

I wasn't sure from his phrasing whether Derek was taking "hours and hours" on each manuscript, or on all the manuscripts he received. But I agree: if it's taking him so much time he really is doing it wrong.

A good editor handling acquisitions will know, almost immediately to stop reading 95% of submissions (maybe that percentage is even higher). It's not hard to tell when a book isn't fit for consideration on page 1, sometimes it might take until page 10, but certainly it does not require reading the whole book. If you're doing that, you're wasting a HUGE amount of time.

Agreed.

Slushkiller gives a good breakdown of why submissions are rejected: scroll down to "3. The context of rejection" heading:

Manuscripts are unwieldy, but the real reason for that time ratio is that most of them are a fast reject. Herewith, the rough breakdown of manuscript characteristics, from most to least obvious rejections:
  1. Author is functionally illiterate.
  2. Author has submitted some variety of literature we don’t publish: poetry, religious revelation, political rant, illustrated fanfic, etc.
  3. Author has a serious neurochemical disorder, puts all important words into capital letters, and would type out to the margins if MSWord would let him.
  4. Author is on bad terms with the Muse of Language. Parts of speech are not what they should be. Confusion-of-motion problems inadvertently generate hideous images. Words are supplanted by their similar-sounding cousins: towed the line, deep-seeded, dire straights, nearly penultimate, incentiary, reeking havoc, hare’s breath escape, plaintiff melody, viscous/vicious, causal/casual, clamoured to her feet, a shutter went through her body, his body went ridged, empirical storm troopers, ex-patriot Englishmen, et cetera.
  5. Author can write basic sentences, but not string them together in any way that adds up to paragraphs.
  6. Author has a moderate neurochemical disorder and can’t tell when he or she has changed the subject. This greatly facilitates composition, but is hard on comprehension.
  7. Author can write passable paragraphs, and has a sufficiently functional plot that readers would notice if you shuffled the chapters into a different order. However, the story and the manner of its telling are alike hackneyed, dull, and pointless.(At this point, you have eliminated 60-75% of your submissions. Almost all the reading-and-thinking time will be spent on the remaining fraction.)
  8. It’s nice that the author is working on his/her problems, but the process would be better served by seeing a shrink than by writing novels.
  9. Nobody but the author is ever going to care about this dull, flaccid, underperforming book.
  10. The book has an engaging plot. Trouble is, it’s not the author’s, and everybody’s already seen that movie/read that book/collected that comic.(You have now eliminated 95-99% of the submissions.)
  11. Someone could publish this book, but we don’t see why it should be us.
  12. Author is talented, but has written the wrong book.
  13. It’s a good book, but the house isn’t going to get behind it, so if you buy it, it’ll just get lost in the shuffle.
  14. Buy this book.

It's easy and relatively swift to eliminate submissions which fall into the first ten or eleven categories. Just as it's easy and swift to identify the few which fall into the last three or four. Either way, it shouldn't take hours. And even if it does, that doesn't justify a reading fee.
 

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[Original post changed because I had a derp.]

This is a bit of a tangent question, but how acceptable and or common is it for an agent who appears to have a good sales record to publish poetry using a vanity press then list it as one of their "Books I've Sold"?
 
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Wow, I guess Absolute Write isn't kidding when they branded me as somebody needing to thicken my skin!
The comparison of calling me a drug dealer who sells meth because I had a press that charged authors is basically adopting the attitude that ALL vanity presses are bad.
-D.

We're not saying all vanity presses are bad. We're saying a vanity press is a vanity press.
 

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Vanity presses have their place, and always have, though they have better competition now*. The problem for inexperienced authors comes with unrealistic expectations of work published through vanity houses. Those books are often POD with lower quality binding. Bookstores are almost never going to physically stock them. They get lost in the market because neither the author nor publisher know how to market them. They probably won't sell physical copies beyond the author's family, friends, and local venues.

* Most of the market for vanity-published misery memoirs, family histories, etc. can be more cheaply served now by digital self-publishing or a la carte printing services. But that can require the skill levels of researching a car or house purchase.

Most often, from what I've seen, vanity publishers aren't scam artists - just misinformed and ill-prepared for the hard work of actually creating and selling books. It's very easy for them to slide into the grey areas of Scamdom, because the package-service earnings from hopeful authors can be far greater than selling their books.
 

CaoPaux

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Site gone, last book pubbed early '17.