Vanity, Subsidy, and Hybrid Publishers

Page updated/links checked 12/27/25

Definitions

Traditional publishers, subsidy publishers, vanity publishers, hybrid publishers, self-publishing–what’s the difference? Some loose definitions:

A traditional publisher (aka a commercial or trade publisher) purchases the right to publish, distribute, and sell a manuscript (usually together with a bundle of other rights, known as subsidiary rights) on an exclusive basis. Authors are paid a royalty on sales. Large publishing houses and bigger independents also pay an advance on royalties; small presses often don’t.

Traditional publishers are highly selective, publishing only a tiny percentage of manuscripts submitted. There’s no cost to the author: the publisher takes on the entire financial risk, handling every aspect of publication at its own expense. This  investment is recouped from the sale of books to the public, and from the licensing of subsidiary rights. Traditional publishers are highly incentivized to invest significant resources in marketing and distribution support for the books they publish, in order to drive the sales that are their primary source of profit.

A vanity (sometimes called a subsidy) publisher charges a fee to produce a book, or requires the author to buy something as a condition of publication (such as a quantity of finished books). Unlike publishing service providers, which also charge fees, vanities present themselves as publishers, and contract rights on an exclusive basis. There may be some degree of gatekeeping–often just to exclude manuscripts that are too long or too short–but vanities can also be more selective than this, especially if they serve a defined market, such as the Christian market.

Fees for vanity publishing can rise into the high five-figure range, and are calculated to ensure a profit for the publisher before the book is ever published. These fees, rather than book sales to the public, are the publisher’s primary profit source, and as a result, vanity publishers have sharply diminished incentive to invest significant resources in high-quality production, marketing, and distribution.

Some vanities claim to offer non-fee contracts alongside their fee-based ones. In some cases this is true (though such contracts will usually be a small percentage of the total, and fees will still be the publisher’s primary profit engine). In others, it’s just a marketing ploy.

Is there a difference between a vanity and a subsidy publisher? Some fee-charging publishers will try to convince you that there is, claiming that subsidy publishers are more respectable because they don’t publish everything that’s submitted, or only expect authors to pay part of the cost. Others employ a variety of euphemisms intended to suggest that they contribute significant value: joint venture, co-op, partnership, equity, contributory, and partner are all terms you may encounter. Don’t be fooled. Any gatekeeping will be minimal compared to that of traditional publishers: after all, if author fees are your main income source, you can’t afford to be too picky. As for the publisher investing its resources alongside yours…it’s a lot more likely that your money will cover not only the whole expense of publication, but the publisher’s overhead and profit as well.

A hybrid publisher also contracts on an exclusive basis and charges a fee, but is selective in what it publishes, and, unlike a vanity publisher, adds significant value in the form of professional-quality editing, design, marketing, and/or distribution. As with vanity publishers, hybrid publishers can be extremely costly, and author fees are a source of profit. But unlike a vanity, a good hybrid will also be committed to getting books into the hands of readers.

Self-publishing service providers and platforms offer publishing, marketing, and distribution services directly to writers, without the intermediary of a publisher. Some , such as Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, are free. Some charge fees for individual services or service packages. Because they’re digitally-based and recoup production costs at the point of sale, their fees are often a good deal lower than vanity or hybrid publishers’, so they can be a cost-effective alternative to those more expensive options. But some charge eye-popping amounts, and many aggressively encourage writers to spend even more on expensive and dubiously useful extras, such as marketing. Many are deceptive about the potential benefits of using their services.

The Pitfalls of Vanity Publishing

For projects where the audience is small, the author’s preference is print, and marketing and profit aren’t a concern (for instance, memoirs or genealogies or recipe compilations, intended for family and friends or to be given as gifts) an honest, straightforward vanity publisher can be an acceptable–if unduly expensive–alternative. If you’re looking to establish a career as a writer, however, or if you actually want people you don’t know to buy and read your books, vanity publishing is not a great idea.

For one thing, as noted above, the expense can be enormous. Even if they claim otherwise (and many do), vanity publishers typically charge far more than the actual production cost of a book. For another, it’s very difficult for authors to recoup this investment. Vanity publishers rarely offer meaningful distribution or marketing; they have no economic incentive to do so, since the bulk of their profit is made up-front, from author fees. For the same reason, poor-quality production may also be a handicap. Also worth considering: because vanity publishers’ contracts are exclusive, and often can’t be terminated at will, you will be stuck with your vanity publisher if things go bad.

And things do go bad. Honest vanity publishers that fulfill contractual promises do exist–but others engage in a wide range of unethical or fraudulent practices, including misrepresenting themselves as traditional publishers, grossly overcharging for their services, reneging on contract obligations, producing shoddy books, providing kickbacks to agents who refer manuscripts…the list goes on.

A few scamming vanities that have made news over the years:

• Sovereign Publications, a vanity publishing firm owned by the fee-charging Deering Literary Agency, took hundreds of thousands of dollars from authors, most of whom never received the books they paid for. The Deerings were convicted of fraud, and sentenced to time in federal prison.
• Press-Tige Publishing, a vanity publisher owned by a woman named Martha Ivery (who also operated under an alias as a fee-charging literary agent), took nearly three-quarters of a million dollars from over 200 authors. Delays were common; promised print runs weren’t delivered, books weren’t distributed or marketed. In the last few years of its existence, Press-Tige published no books at all, though it continued to offer contracts and take money from authors. Ivery was ultimately sentenced to five years in federal prison.
• Minerva Press Ltd., a UK vanity publisher with branches in India and the USA, was the subject of two exposes by the BBC. More than 40 authors sought redress from this company, alleging false promises, production of shoddy books, and general failure to fulfill contractual promises. When Minerva finally went bust, it left behind over £2 million in debt, as well as unpaid staff and multitudes of unhappy authors.
• Vantage Press, a vanity publisher founded in 1949 that was once sued by its authors for deceptive advertising and broken contractual promises, vanished abruptly in 2013. Most authors weren’t informed of the closure, and found out only when the company contacted them to offer a release of rights in exchange for waiving all debts, damages, and their right to sue. An accounting of money due was promised, along with a return of unsold printed books, but to date, most authors haven’t received either one.
• Tate Publishing & Enterprises, a self-styled Christian publisher based in Oklahoma, charged four-figure fees–but you’d never have known that from its website, in which it presented itself as a “mainline” publisher with thousands of happy authors. Reports of problems–including non-payment of royalties, non-payment of staff, book orders not filled, and marketing services not delivered–began to mount in 2015. By January 2017, when Tate finally closed its doors, hundreds of author complaints had been posted online and sent to the Oklahoma Attorney General; and two multi-million dollar default judgments had been entered against Tate by creditors who, like authors, went unpaid. Shortly afterward, Tate’s founder and CEO were charged by the Oklahoma AG with multiple felony counts of embezzlement and fraud.
• PublishAmerica was a rare vanity publisher that didn’t charge upfront fees, enabling it to claim it was “traditional”. But it imposed a huge range of fees for various “extras”, such as expedited processing, changes in proof, and marketing “opportunities”, and heavily pressured its authors to buy their own books (for which they were charged exorbitant shipping fees). PublishAmerica held authors’ rights for ransom by charging fees to terminate contracts. It was lucrative for its owners for as long as it lasted–but there’s little honor among thieves, and in 2017 the company fell apart amid internal strife and lawsuits. No official announcement of its closing was ever made; authors received no release of rights or payment of outstanding royalties.

Vanity Publishers in Sheep’s Clothing

As writers become more aware of the pitfalls of vanity publishing, many less-than-honest pay-to-play operations are trying dodge the vanity label by stripping mention of their fees from their websites, shifting their charges to areas other than production, or calling themselves “independent” or “hybrid” publishers.

If asked, such publishers vehemently deny that they are vanities. After all, they don’t accept everyone who submits! They aren’t asking authors to pay for printing, just to buy hundreds of their own books–and wouldn’t they want to do that anyway? They’re contributing the lion’s share of production costs! (This last is usually a lie.)

But whether you’re handing over money for book production or for the purchase of finished books, the bottom line is the same: you must lay out cash as a condition of publication. A publisher that realizes a profit from its authors before the book is even published has seriously reduced incentive to cut into that profit by investing in quality editing, marketing, and distribution. As for book sales, they’re just gravy.

Here are some of the ways in which vanity publishers attempt to hide or sanitize their true nature:

• A claim to be a hybrid publisher. Many vanities call themselves hybrids because it sounds more respectable and obscures their true business model. This has become so common that you should always give extra scrutiny to a publisher that labels itself a hybrid.
•  A fee for just one aspect of the publication process, such as editing. This is often pitched as “cost sharing”, since you’re supposedly not paying for the whole process: just a part of it. But it’s very likely that whatever fee you’re quoted actually represents the full production cost plus overhead and profit. And real publishers provide editing (or cover art, or marketing) as part of the publication process, at their expense.
• A book purchase requirement. Some vanity publishers require you to buy a quantity of finished books–from a few hundred to several thousand copies, often at a paltry discount. This can be be spun as “investing” in your success as an author–but the bottom line is that you are giving your publisher cash in order to be published.
• Fees for “extra” services over and above the basics of publication. The publisher doesn’t charge you an upfront fee, but does offer you the opportunity to pay for expedited editing, or special website placement, or inclusion in book fair catalogs, or enhanced marketing. These services are optional–so the publisher can claim it’s not making authors to pay to publish–but there’s often heavy pressure to buy, and authors who don’t pull out their credit cards may become second-class citizens.
• A sales guarantee. If your book doesn’t sell X number of copies within X amount of time, you must agree to buy the difference. Most authors have an over-optimistic idea of the sales they can achieve, and figure they’ll never have to pay up–but vanity publishers’ nonexistent marketing and distribution ensures that they’re usually wrong.
•  A pre-sale requirement. A similar contract clause may require you to generate a certain number of sales prior to publication, or to “guarantee” a minimum number of sales (usually, exactly as much as is needed to enable the publisher to recoup its investment and make a profit). You don’t have to buy them yourself–you may be asked to find “investors” or organizations to commit to purchases–but if you don’t deliver the sales, the publishing deal is off. This is an especially tricky variation on the pay-to-publish scheme, because it allows the publisher to claim that it’s not asking you for cash. But it’s not an author’s job to be a salesperson for his or her own books. That’s what the publisher is supposed to do.
•  Withheld royalties. You get no royalty income until the publisher’s out-of-pocket costs have been recouped. In this version of vanity publishing, you don’t have to actually hand over any cash, but money that should be yours is kept by the publisher, which amounts to the same thing.
• A claim that your fee is only part of the cost, with the publisher fronting the rest. This extremely common claim, whose sole purpose is to make you feel better about handing over a large amount of money, is, at best, an exaggeration. At worst, it’s a lie. Vanity publishers’ profit comes from the fees authors pay and the books authors themselves buy, rather than from book sales to the public; there is little incentive to cut into that by investing resources in high-quality editing, design, production, and marketing. Most of the time, your fee pays the whole freight, regardless of what the publisher may claim.
• A claim that fee-based contracts are only part of the business, with traditional contracts making up the rest. Some vanities really do offer a limited number of no-fee contracts, but this claim is as apt to be a lie as to be true. Even if the publisher isn’t lying, its reliance on pay-to-play contracts as a primary profit source means that it won’t be set up to provide traditional-quality services or distribution, even for authors who aren’t required to pay.
• Pressure to buy your book yourself. The publisher may not contractually require you to purchase your own book; indeed, it may make a big deal of telling you that you don’t have to buy anything. Even so, it will put you under heavy buying pressure–for instance, providing an Author Guide that extols the financial benefit of buying your own book for resale, or bombarding you with special incentives such as extra discounts or contests for the month’s top seller. These are all signs of a publisher that relies on its authors as its primary income source, and therefore has little interest in selling books to the public. Unfortunately, if the publisher employs such tactics, you usually don’t find out about them until you’ve already signed the contract.
• A variety of other sneaky techniques. Some examples from Writer Beware’s complaint files: requiring authors to pay for publisher-sponsored conferences or workshops or publicity opportunities or “author universities”; requiring authors to sell ads that are included in the company’s books; hawking company stock to authors, despite the lack of an appropriate license; requiring authors to hire the publisher’s staff to perform various adjunct services. The permutations are endless.

Hybrid Publishers

When is a fee-charging publisher not a vanity publisher? When it’s a hybrid publisher. Sometimes.

When used correctly, the term “hybrid publisher” indicates a publisher that straddles the divide between traditional and self-publishing: charging a fee but publishing selectively, and adding value in terms of quality editing, design, marketing, and/or distribution beyond that of a self-publishing platform or a vanity publisher.

Unfortunately, many unscrupulous vanity publishers have embraced the label in an effort to make themselves seem more respectable. Ditto for some expensive assisted self-publishing services. How to tell the difference? Author and editor Jane Friedman provides this advice:

• A hybrid worth the name will have some method of curating or selecting what projects to take on. In other words: They consider the market potential of your work and its ability to succeed. If they appear to take anyone and everyone, then you’re better off evaluating the best self-publishing service to use. Don’t kid yourself about leveling up to a hybrid. (So-called hybrids aren’t averse to playing to your ego to get your business.)
• A hybrid publisher should offer the potential of specialized or hard to get distribution, where they can get books physically placed on shelves in stores. They might not be able to promise this, but if they’re actively placing books at bricks-and-mortar retail outlets—and they have a catalog of titles for marketing purposes—that’s a good sign. Again, any self-publishing author can easily get distribution through online retail, via Amazon and IngramSpark (who take a cut of sales), so the more the hybrid invests in marketing and distributing print editions, the more they might be offering something you may not be able to accomplish yourself. Still, keep in mind most books are not sold in physical stores now. They are sold online.
• Most hybrid publishers that live up to their name work with you both pre-publication and post-publication. The relationship doesn’t end once the book is done; some even sell subsidiary rights on your behalf. However, you may have to pay fees to continue the relationship beyond the first year or so.

Similar guidelines are provided by the Independent Book Publishers Association in its Hybrid Publisher Criteria, a 9-point set of standards intended to differentiate true hybrid publishers from other author-subsidized models (i.e., vanity publishers).

Hybrid publishing companies behave just like traditional publishing companies in all respects, except that they publish books using an author-subsidized business model, as opposed to financing all costs themselves, and in exchange return a higher-than-industry-standard share of sales proceeds to the author. In other words, a hybrid publisher makes income from a combination of publishing services and book sales.

Unfortunately, these criteria are extremely easy for less-than-honest fee-charging publishers to game by misrepresenting their business models or just plain lying (an example: prolific vanity publisher Austin Macauley). This kind of subterfuge is  common. As a result, you cannot trust that a self-described hybrid publisher actually is one.

It’s a good idea, therefore, not to take a hybrid publisher’s claims at face value, but to investigate on your own.

• Does the hybrid claim to screen for quality and publish to professional standards? Assess those claims for credibility: buy some of its books, and use Amazon’s Look Inside feature to sample more.
• Make sure that the hybrid is offering more than a self-publishing-style suite of services, or pretending that the basic elements of digital publishing (such as “worldwide distribution” via Ingram and online retailers) are premium extras. What will it do for you that you can’t do for yourself, or buy for less from another service?
• Check the hybrid’s other claims. Does it really work with a distributor (as opposed to a wholesaler like Ingram)? Can it really get its books into brick-and-mortar stores? Does it really do the marketing it promises?
• Search for complaints. Absolute Write’s Bewares, Recommendations, & Background Check forum is a good place to start. Contact Writer Beware; we may have heard something.

Finally: ask yourself why you are choosing to spend a large amount of money to publish your book with a hybrid instead of self-publishing or submitting to agents and/or traditional publishers.

Genuine hybrids can be seriously expensive. Some may quote a base price on their websites that doesn’t include important elements like editing or printing, which must be purchased separately. Others may pressure authors to up their initial investment by buying add-on services–which, if included, can bring fees well above $20,000. (You can see the eye-poppint amounts two authors spent on their hybrid-published books here.) Not only does this make it even more important to determine that you’re not being rooked by a vanity publisher in disguise, it should prompt careful and realistic consideration of the probability of ever recouping your investment.

Pay-to-Play Anthologies

A different type of vanity publisher is the pay-to-play anthology. These come in a couple of flavors.

The contest scheme

In this version of the pay-to-play anthology, writers are targeted via a free contest. Announcements and submission calls may appear online, in newspapers, writers’ magazines, or other publications. Cash prizes are promised for finalists and semi-finalists, as well as inclusion in an anthology that will be published in print, often in hardcover. 

 

The contest isn’t a real contest, however. Most of those who submit are told that they’re semi-finalists, and offered publication. The anthology publisher then asks for money, requiring writers to buy the anthology as a condition of publication or incentivizing purchase by offering what seem like perks: volume discounts, special rates for friends and family, extras like certificates. The publisher may also sell adjunct services or merchandise–critiques and editing, a poem or story read onto audio tape, embossed mugs and plaques.

For the most part, pay-to-play anthologizers do publish the promised books, and writers who buy books and merchandise do get what they pay for. However, unlike true anthologies, which are sold to readers, pay-to-play anthologies are sold primarily to contributors and friends and family. Deceptively, anthology publication is portrayed as a genuine literary credit that writers can be proud of, but in reality, poor production values and the lack of gatekeeping makes it unlikely that inclusion will count as a real writing credit.

Most pay-to-play anthologizers target poets, but there are also anthologies for short stories, nonfiction articles, and photography. Sadly, many creatives are taken in by this deception, which is aided by magazines and newspapers that report on local writers’ inclusion as if they were a genuine literary market. Elderly people are a particular target, as are teens–some anthologizers specialize in soliciting teachers, who don’t realize that the anthologies aren’t a legitimate venue and are very willing to recruit student participants.

Pay-to-play anthologies are much less common than they used to be–Iliad Press, Sparrowgrass Poetry Forum, The Amherst Society, The Poets’ Guild, Poetry Press, Poetry Unlimited, The National Archives, and MW Publishing are all names that have fallen by the wayside, along with the granddaddy of anthologizers, Poetry.com. But there are still a few that carry on the tradition, including Eber & Wein (which targets poets), Appelley Publishing (which targets students and teachers), and Z Publishing, which targets poets and prose writers.

“Contributor” anthologies

This type of pay-to-play anthology recruits contributors who pay for inclusion of a chapter or other piece of writing.  Typically, such anthologies are nonfiction, usually on subjects of general or inspirational interest, sometimes with introductions by well-known experts. Contributors aren’t necessarily writers, but business owners or entrepreneurs looking for a publishing credit to add to their CV. Some anthologies charge an upfront fee ranging from several hundred to several thousand; others require a book purchase commitment (which can be even more expensive).

For example, the Wake Up…Live the Life You Love series of anthologies required contributors to buy up to 500 books at a cost of several thousand dollars, and boasted that its anthologies included articles by such well-known figures as Dr. Wayne Dyer and Tony Robbins (likely, articles that the series owner had bought a license to re-use). The anthologies published by Inspired Living Publishing required contributors to pay thousands for “marketing packages” that included not just large numbers of books, but various promotional aids of dubious effectiveness.

Contributor anthology organizers (who often sell classes or workshops on how you! too! can become a contributor anthology organizer) make a point of emphasizing how much profit writers can realize if they sell the books, since they’re purchasing them for less than list price. They also tout the anthologies as opportunities for entrepreneurs and business owners to enhance their professional images by presenting themselves as published authors. But while it’s probably true that people who aren’t plugged into the world of writing scams won’t think to question the legitimacy of one of these anthology credits, it’s also worth considering whether it’s worth paying several thousand for a chapter in an anthology series no one is likely to have heard of. And even if you have a lot of followers or a robust customer base, it’s not so easy to flog several hundred books, even assuming that the anthologies are professionally produced and edited (not a guarantee–this is definitely a case of try before you buy). 

Warning Signs

When evaluating fee-charging publishers, be cautious If you encounter any of the following.

• A vanity or hybrid publisher that poses as a traditional publisher. Many vanity publishers don’t mention their fees on their websites or in their publicity materials; authors may only find out that money is due after submitting. The idea is to entice authors who wouldn’t normally submit to a fee-charging publisher, and may find an actual publication offer hard to refuse, even if a fee is attached. But a publisher that doesn’t present itself honestly at the outset is probably not a publisher that will treat you honestly in the long run.
• Any of the stealth techniques described in the Vanity Publishers in Sheep’s Clothing section, above. These are all designed to encourage you to believe that you’re not dealing with a vanity publisher…but if your publisher requires you to pay something or buy something as a condition of publication, or appropriates your royalties to reimburse its costs, you are dealing with a vanity, no matter what the publisher tells you. And if the publisher isn’t honest about what it is and what it does, you can’t count on it to be honest in other areas, either.
• A fee that isn’t included in the contract. For instance, the publisher may contact you to offer a contract, and tell you in the offer email that you must buy a certain number of your own books. The purchase requirement doesn’t appear anywhere in the contract, but if you don’t pay up, you won’t get published. Required book purchases are one of many techniques by which vanity publishers attempt to disguise or sanitize their fees; this iteration of that technique is extra stealthy because it’s “unofficial.”
• Terms like “co-op”, “joint venture”, “partner”, “contributory”, or any other phrase or claim that suggests the publisher will be contributing resources or matching your investment with its own. A vanity publisher’s profit comes from the fees its authors pay and the books or other services they buy. It’s unlikely to cut into that by investing significant resources of its own.
• A referral from a literary agency or freelance editor. Reputable literary agents and freelance editors don’t work with vanity publishers. Those who do are either receiving a kickback from the publisher, own the publisher themselves (possibly under another name), or are incompetent. Whatever the reason, it’s bad news for you.
• A promise (stated or implied) of a profit. Some vanity publishers provide nicely-formatted sample sales projections supposedly showing that you can make thousands in profit by selling X number of books. In fact, for the reasons outlined above, it’s extremely difficult even to break even on a vanity-published book. An ethical vanity publisher will warn you at the outset that vanity-published books rarely recoup authors’ investments.
• Obfuscation or refusal of reasonable requests for information. You’re paying for the service, so you have the right to have all your questions answered fully, honestly, and promptly. If a vanity publisher refuses to provide you with references, or hedges about details such as contract arrangements, production schedules, marketing, and so on, be suspicious.
• Refusal to provide a firm price. The exact amount you are expected to pay should be stated at the outset (and included in the contract), including any extras such as warehousing or marketing. Don’t deal with a publisher that is vague about money–for instance, a publisher that tells you that the final price can’t be quoted until the books are printed (in which case you might wind up paying a substantial “differential”), or that warehousing will be charged “at the publisher’s discretion” (in which case you could be hit with enormous additional fees).
• Verbal promises that aren’t duplicated in the contract. Some dishonest vanity publishers try to soothe nervous writers by promising various perks, such as a full or partial reimbursement of their costs if the book doesn’t sell out within a specified period of time. However, if such promises aren’t included in the contract, you’ll have little recourse if they aren’t fulfilled (which is exactly why unethical publishers don’t write them down). If the publisher is willing to promise something, it should also be willing to include it to the contract.
• A double standard. Dishonest vanity publishers sometimes entice writers by saying that they can’t risk a regular contract for someone who hasn’t yet published anything. Or they may tell you that they’ve used up their traditional publishing budget for the year, but would be glad to work with you on a “co-op” basis. Or they may promise to publish your second book without charge if the first book does well. In all these cases, the implication is that the publisher is primarily a traditional publisher, and is offering the fee-based contract as a special circumstance. But though some vanity publishers do occasionally offer non-fee contracts, such promises are far more likely to be marketing ploys intended to make writers feel better about handing over large sums of cash.
• Pressure. A disreputable vanity publisher wants to hook you quick, before you change your mind. Beware, therefore, if a publisher tells you that its offer is “limited time only,” or that (unexplained) circumstances require you to “act immediately.” Like the permanent going-out-of-business sale, this is just marketing.

Resources

Checking Reputations

• E-mail Writer Beware. SFWA has assembled a large archive of documentation on vanity publishers that engage in questionable practices. Send us the names of any publisher you’d like to know about, and we’ll summarize for you any data that’s in our files. If we have no information, we’ll let you know that too.
• The Bewares, Recommendations, and Background Check area of the Absolute Write Water Cooler is an excellent place to check for information on any kind of publisher. Check the index to see if the publisher you’re interested in has already been discussed.

General Information

• From the Alliance of Independent Authors: What is Vanity Publishing?
• This insightful article from John Doppler of the Alliance of Independent Authors examines the vulnerabilities vanity publishers exploit in order to hook their victims: 5 Reasons Authors Fall For Vanity Presses.
• Also by John Doppler: Fool Me Twice: How Victims of Vanity Presses Become Repeat Victims (Writer Beware has files full of similar stories).
• A comprehensive article from author Barbara Linn Probst: Hybrid Publishing: Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know
• From Writer Beware’s blog: a look at seven prolific vanity publishers, and why they should be avoided.
• Not All Hybrid Publishers Are Created Equal: advice and warning from Jane Friedman.
• Also from Jane Friedman: IMHO: A Nuanced Look at Hybrid Publishers
• When you need to run away: Hybrid Publishers and Paid Publishing Services: Red Flags to Watch For
• The Library of Congress offers a helpful guide to amateur poetry anthologies that includes suggestions for finding a poem you or a family member submitted to an anthology published by a defunct vanity anthologizer.
• Writing coach Nina Amir on reasons to steer clear of anthologies that require you to pay to be included.
• Tricks and tactics of vanity publishers, from Writer Beware’s blog:
  • Europe Books solicits authors with submission invitations; later on, they discover they must buy 250 of their own books.
  • Book Publishers London, a vanity that has had at least two other names, takes the money and runs.
  • A look at how UK-based vanity publisher Austin Macauley abuses Google ads (never trust a publisher that advertises).
  • A look at Novum Publishing/United PC Publisher, an Austrian vanity with dubious tactics and a terrible contract.
  • Troubled Texas-based vanity Waldorf Publishing has employed two stealth vanity tactics: letting authors choose their fees by offering a sliding scale of royalties (the bigger the royalty, the larger the fee), and a book purchase requirement.

Vanity Publishers Gone Bad Go Bust

• The slow-motion collapse of vanity publisher Tate Publishing & Enterprises, beset by lawsuits and money troubles. Two of Tate’s owners were later convicted of multiple felonies.
• The implosion of one of the most notorious stealth vanities ever, PublishAmerica a.k.a. America Star Books, under the weight of lawsuits and liens.
• Historical Pages, a vanity publisher owned by Peter Campbell-Copp,was shut down by police in 2011. It owed authors and creditors at least $170,000.
• Indiana-based New Century Publishing, run by professional fraudster David Caswell, closed its doors in 2010, owing thousands of dollars to authors whose money it had taken and whose books it had never produced.
• Sovereign Publications, or what happens when a scam literary agency owns a vanity publisher.
• Press-Tige Publishing was a vanity publisher owned by a fee-charging literary agent with a mania for aliases.
• Airleaf LLC, an Indiana-based vanity publisher, was sued by the Indiana Attorney General after more than 400 authors paid money for books that were never published and publicity services that were never rendered.
• When C. Lee Nunn of notorious vanity publisher American Book Publishing decided to close down her company, she held writers’ rights for ransom.

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