Choose Your Own (Publishing) Adventure

Three Publishers You’ll Encounter and What You Need to Know About Them

Before I begin let’s all take a moment to hope that Chooseco does not descend upon me, like a vulture on Prometheus’s perennial liver, for taking the name of their hallowed book series in vain.

One of my writing-adjacent activities is browsing writing groups and forums to see what other writers are talking about. I see some of the same questions resurface time after time and when that happens I add those questions to the editorial calendar.

These are their stories. (Law and Order gavel noise dot wav.)

There are plenty of ways to get your work published. You can self-publish or you can have some else publish you. If someone else is publishing you, your first stop might be a literary agent—a specific situation that isn’t covered in today’s article. Self-publishing is a whole other thing; you can go it alone or you can pay someone to help you self-publish while you retain all the rights (and privileges). I’ll talk more about self-publishing in several future articles.

Today’s Shelf Life is about working directly with publishers. Specifically, it’s about knowing the various types of publishers that exist; identifying what model a given publisher uses; and choosing the type that’s right for you.

You might perceive publishing paths on a linear scale with full-service traditional publishing at the top (or “best”) and self-publishing at the bottom (or “worst”). Somewhere in the middle are other models like vanity publishing and hybrid publishing. And while we’re on the subject, what’s an indie publisher? What’s the “big five”? Or a small press? Is subsidy publishing the same as vanity publishing?

I’ll tell you right now that I don’t think any model of publishing is inherently good or bad, or better or worse, than the others. There are predatory publishers using all of these models. Some models have a higher concentration of predatory publishers. You should always avoid a publishing company that feeds on authors instead of feeding them, or masquerades as something it’s not. But that doesn’t mean that any of the models are fundamentally bad. Not every book is a good fit for traditional publishing. 

Here are your three main types of publishing company:

• Traditional

• Vanity

• Hybrid

The main difference is found in the exchange: What do you give them? What do they give you in return?

Turning a manuscript into a book is expensive and requires several non-overlapping skill sets to do it well. That is true for every type of book I can think of and every publishing model. The first skill is the one you bring to the table as the author: the skill of creating content. If you have a publisher, then most of the other skills needed to get the book published are going to be provided by that publisher. The devil is in the details.

Let’s get clear on a few terms. A lot of people conflate the terms independent publisher and small press but that’s not accurate. An independent publisher can be big or small; independence in this case only means they’re not part of a larger publishing conglomerate. O’Reilly Media is an independent publisher with Tim O’Reilly at the top. They don’t answer to a Pearson or a Macmillan somewhere up the chain—but they’re not small.

A small press is a publisher with low output—usually in terms of annual revenue or title volume. There’s no strict definition, and peoples’ opinions on how small a company has to be to be called “a small press” vary. Small presses tend to focus on a niche or specialty and publish only that. Melville House, Akashic, and Tupelo are well-known small presses. The smallest small presses are called micropresses. Diskette Press in Ann Arbor, MI, is a micropress. 

If you write on a niche subject or in a genre that doesn’t have a big mainstream audience, then a small press might be a great fit for your work. Small presses are also more likely to accept unagented submissions than larger presses. 

Most (if not all) small presses are independent publishers, but not all independent publishers are small presses. Independent publishers and small presses can be traditional, hybrid, or vanity publishers. Just keep in mind:

• Small versus large press refers to the size of the company in terms of revenue or titles;

• Independent refers to ownership structure of the company; and

• Trad, vanity, and hybrid refer to the publishing business model the company uses.

Traditional Publishing

Trad publishers are what most people think of when they say “publisher.” The trad publishing model is where you, the author, bring your content to the publisher (with or without an agent) and the publisher pays you for the right to publish that content and sell it. When someone in the publishing industry says “big five,” they are talking about the five largest trad houses in the United States:

• Hachette Book Group

• HarperCollins

• Macmillan

• Penguin Random House

• Simon & Schuster

What about Pearson, isn’t Pearson huge? Yeah, Pearson PLC in the UK owns Penguin Random House and then there’s also Pearson Education in the States but, look, it’s a whole thing. These five are the major publishers that scoop up the biggest books and authors that publish in the United States. They make up the lion’s share of what America reads.

“Not me. I only read sci-fi, my books come from Tor.” Tor is part of Macmillan. “What about romance? That’s all Harlequin, isn’t it?” Harlequin is HarperCollins. Most of the imprints and publishing groups with recognizable names are part of those big five: Ballantine; DAW; Del Rey; Knopf; Orbit; Putnam; Scribner; St Martin’s; Vintage; and so on. It’s all the same five. 

Not all traditional publishing in the United States is the big five. There are independent and small trad publishers, too. The thing that distinguishes the trad publishing model from the others is that the money is always flowing from the publisher to the author. They might pay authors an upfront advance against future royalties or they may sign a book without an advance and pay the author with royalties after publication, but the author is ultimately being paid for the content. 

The trad publisher takes on all of the publishing expenses—by using their own in-house staff to do the work or contracting other companies to do it or (most often) a mix of both—and they receive most of the money from the sales of the book, from which they pay the author.

Some small traditional publishers charge submission fees, usually for poetry or short fiction. It’s much less common for longform writing. Submission fees defray the cost of having someone read your query letter and evaluate your story, poem, sample chapters, or book proposal. A submission fee is not necessarily a sign that a publishing company is trying to con you. But if you’re a full-length project, a submission fee may be a sign that a publisher is a vanity or hybrid press in disguise.

Vanity Presses

The terms vanity press and subsidy press refer to the same thing: A publishing company that charges the author money to publish their book. The author subsidizes the costs of publishing. In this model, money flows from the author to the publisher. You are not selling the rights to publish your book. You are purchasing publishing services. Their business model does not make money by selling your books but by selling services to you.

That’s always bad, right? Not necessarily—no. The model itself is not inherently bad. If:

• You have written a book; and 

• You wish to have it published; and

• It is not suitable for trad publishing (no commercial appeal); and

• You don’t want to self-publish; and

• You’re going in with your eyes open

Then, in my opinion, it’s as good as any other model. Yes, it costs you money. But if you recognize that your work doesn’t have commercial value for a trad publisher and you still want to publish it for your own edification—or you’re certain you can sell volume yourself once it’s published—then go for it. 

The problem is that the world of vanity publishing is rife with companies attempting to dupe inexperienced authors into believing that they are traditional publishers and will provide the services a traditional publisher would. They are counting on authors not knowing the publishing business well enough to tell the difference. Good thing you’ve got Shelf Life.

If you choose to go with a vanity press for your book, make sure you spell out in explicit detail what you get for your money. Are they charging you a fee for services rendered (eg, editing or cover design)? Do you have to buy a certain number of copies of the book, which you will then be responsible for reselling to recoup the expense? Are they agreeing to provide services beyond producing and printing the book, such as distribution? Who will own the rights to the content? And who will own the working files that are created in the process of publishing the book?

Many of these publishers will say things like: “We’ll make your book available in brick-and-mortar bookstores! You can’t get that if you self-publish!” Well, first of all, you can. But to the point at hand: Getting stores to stock your book is not the same as making it available. Most bookstores won’t stock a book from a vanity press on principle—even if it’s available to them, even at a deep discount—because a vanity press won’t accept returns of unsold stock.

Most vanity publishers try to pass themselves off as traditional publishers or hybrid publishers. Don’t be fooled. If you think that vanity publishing, generally, is the right choice for your project, please pick a company that isn’t trying to defraud you. Look for a company that puts their pricing up front and is clear about the services they offer. Carefully evaluate what you get for your money. Do your research. Scrutinize.

Don’t confuse a vanity press with a company that offers self-publishing assistance for a fee. If you think the vanity route is a good choice for you because you have the money and it’s basically self-publishing but someone else does the work—that’s not true. The contract you sign with a vanity press may confer rights to your book on the press, transfer the copyright to them, or let them retain ownership of native files (editing, typesetting, and cover design files) when your business relationship ends. 

Hybrid Publishing

A hybrid publisher positions themself between the vanity and trad models. Their revenue derives from two sources: The fee that the author pays to subsidize the cost of publishing and book sales. They’re more selective than a vanity press, only signing books they think they can sell, but less selective than a trad house trawling for bestsellers. They’ll offer more and better services than a vanity press—like better marketing, cover design, and maybe even real marketing and distribution—but not with the same production values and market reach of a trad publisher. And they’ll expect the author to contribute to the cost of producing the book (either with payment up front or by recouping the cost of production from sales before royalties are paid out), but in return they will do some distribution and sales legwork. 

They make some of their money from you directly and some of it from selling books. This means they have a vested interest in producing a book that they can sell and they have motivation to market, distribute, and sell that book. A vanity press, on the other hand, knows they will never be able to sell your book and that all of their revenue has to come from your pocket. 

Watch out for vanity presses pretending to be hybrid presses. That’s the real danger scenario: A vanity press can’t usually pass themself off as a trad publisher because all but the most naïve authors know the money is moving in the wrong direction. It’s much easier for a vanity press to claim that they are a hybrid press so you don’t shut them down immediately when they ask you for money.

Red (and Pink) Flags

So how can you tell who’s a traditional publisher, who’s a hybrid publisher, and who’s a vanity press when pretty much every vanity and hybrid press is telling you “hey relax I’m definitely some other kind of publisher”? Here are a few telling signs to look for.

First: Are they asking for your money for any reason? If yes, it’s almost certainly a hybrid or vanity situation. No traditional publisher takes money from the author. They give money to the author. The only exception to this would be a submission or reading fee, and even the presence of those should sound an alarm bell.

Next: What’s the main function of their website? Does it showcase author services? Or books? A traditional publisher will have most of their site dedicated to marketing and selling books to readers, because they make their money selling books. Their submissions page might seem like it was purposely hidden (spoiler alert: it was). A vanity or hybrid press, on the other hand, makes their money by selling services to authors so that’s what they use their homepage for. It’s focused on attracting you to publish with them rather than getting readers for their books or promoting their authors. You’re definitely their customer and not their business partner.

Finally: Where can you buy their books? It is trivially easy to make a book available on Amazon. If you don’t see a publisher’s books available at Amazon, immediately question it. Visit the publisher’s homepage and find a book they’re advertising prominently. Plug the author’s last name, book title, and ISBN into Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Powell’s, and a few of your local independent bookstores. If none of those places returns a result on your searches, you may safely assume that the publisher hasn’t done marketing or distribution for even their featured content. If you only get a hit at Amazon and not anywhere else, they’re probably not providing much (if any) service beyond what you’d get with KDP.

Many writers imagine that trad publishers will seize their book immediately, see its intrinsic value, and sign it on the spot with a juicy advance. That’s a vanishingly rare situation. Vanity and hybrid publishers count on meeting you after you’ve been worn down by trad-house rejection—when you’re starting to feel like you’ll never get signed. If you know that trad publishing is the route for you, arm yourself with the knowledge from today’s Shelf Life to make sure you don’t fall victim to shady publishing practices.

TL;DR: Never take a company’s word on whether they’re a traditional, vanity, or hybrid publisher. Learn the difference then find out for yourself.

Hey, Thursday is Thanksgiving but Shelf Life will be waiting for you Thursday morning like always! If you don’t get a chance to read it on Thursday, that’s fine. I’ll forgive you if you have to leave it till Friday. I hope that you have a pleasant Thanksgiving and that you and your loved ones play it safe and stay healthy. Personally, I’m very thankful that you read Shelf Life. I’ll talk to you soon. 

PS—The Shelf Life homepage has just launched and I’d love for you to check it out and let me know what you think. All the Shelf Life resources you could ever want, all in one place.

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