So you know how I’ve been defining the difference between vanity publishers and self-publishing presses as (A) who’s getting the profit and (B) who controls the ISBN?

Well, it looks like I have to rethink that difference. Thanks to a number of people (some of whom I’m quoting, with their permission, in this blog post), I’ve been thinking about this pretty much all day. (I even missed last night’s CASTLE. Alas. Okay, that was because the DVR didn’t record it, but still.)

Let’s kick it off.

As author and communications consultant Julia Sullivan points out, there are POD printers, such as LightningSource, that are just that: printers. And there are brick-and-mortar printers that are just that: printers. These printers are not publishers of any sort — self-, independent, subsidy or vanity. That seems pretty clear.

And then there are publishers who, after the author has paid for all the publishing services up front, get a percentage of the profit. (This had been one of my two “That’s A Vanity Publisher” qualifications; the other was the publisher controls the ISBN instead of the author.)

So is it correct for me to say authors who use true self-publishing presses get 100% of the profit, and those who use vanity publishers do not? Here’s where things start to get murky.

“With old-style vanities,” says Victoria Strauss, one of the voices of Writer Beware, “you paid for your 50 boxes of books and you got to keep 100% of what you sold them for.” That’s actually how I had been defining a true self-publishing press. But things are very different today. Now the rule of thumb seems to be these publishers take a portion of the profit, even after the author pays all the service costs.

Let’s take CreateSpace, the Amazon publishing venue (which will be merging with BookSurge). As Victoria says: “For a black-and-white book, if you sell from CreateSpace’s eStore, they take 20% of the list price plus a per-page charge for books over 108 pages. If you sell from Amazon, they take 40% of list price plus the per-page charge. (The fees for color books are higher.) They call what you get a ‘royalty.’” She points out that Amazon owns CreateSpace, so if it sells on Amazon, you are paying both CreateSpace and Amazon — which, in effect, is paying Amazon twice. So CreateSpace, on top of its fees for various services, gets a profit of 20% - 40% off the cover price. According to the definition I had been using, this would make it a vanity publisher.

Another example: Lulu. Says Victoria: “Anything over and above manufacturing costs, i.e., profit, is called ‘creator revenue.’ Lulu takes 25% of creator revenue, which it calls a commission.” Again, by the definition I had been using, this would make Lulu a vanity publisher.

Call it a royalty. Call it a commission. Either way, it’s taking additional money away from the author — who has already paid to get the book printed in the first place (and possibly also edited). But as a business model, is this a bad thing?

“Of course self-publishing companies want to make money,” Victoria says. “It makes perfect sense that they’d charge overhead, and I don’t have any quarrel with that, as long as they’re straightforward about it, which both CreateSpace and Lulu are.”

Julia agrees: “Either a front-end fee or a fee taken out of the sale of each product seems like a legit way for a printing service to recoup costs. The latter–taking a cut from each sale, but charging no front-end fee (or a very nominal one)– certainly [has] been the norm with printing services for t-shirts, buttons, etc.”

So now my head is spinning. Clearly, my definition of vanity publishing was out of touch. As Victoria points out: “If you’re going to define self-publishing as ‘paying to publish but keeping 100% of the profits,’ and vanity publishing as ‘paying to publish and then handing over a some of your profits to the publisher,’ I think you cannot then split hairs and call some self-publishing services vanity publishers and others printers. Some are more straightforward than others (a lot more). But when you break it down, it’s still vanity publishing.”

It’s an excellent point. How can I say that some self-publishing outfits are not vanity publishers but other self-publishing outfits are?

What’s more, it’s been pointed out that not only is there no standard definition for vanity publishing, the term itself is derogatory. “I think to be meaningful, a category name has to be proudly claimed by the people who belong in that group,” says author Emily Veinglory. “You might meaningfully argue about what self-, subsidy, independent etc means (although there is still no consensus *across* subcultures), but “vanity” is just an insult.”

Victoria Strauss agrees: “There are no standard definitions, and that’s part of the problem. Perhaps another part is that using a pejorative term (vanity) only clouds the issue.”

Whew.

Okay, I can see how the term “vanity publishing” can be inflammatory. After all, it’s basically saying that it’s a publication for vanity’s sake and nothing else. (And heck, I’ll admit that I’m pretty vain when it comes to seeing my name on a book cover. I like it. A lot. I feel like a rock star.)

And so, a concession: I’ll stop using the term “vanity publishing,” effective immediately. A commenter from a previous post said that a better term is “assisted self-publishing.” Okay, I’ll play along. It’s a kinder, gentler term.

Back to the question of how one can distinguish from self-publishing and assisted self-publishing.

Julia suggests that an important distinction is the brand — that is, the imprint name of the book. “Lulu, CreateSpace, et al. are self-branded, even though the service takes a slice of each sale,” she says. “eBay takes a slice of each sale, too, but one wouldn’t call it ‘vanity auction’.”

What does she mean by self-branding? Julia explains: “If I’m doing my book through Lulu, it’s [a Julia Sullivan] book, not a Lulu book. I’m paying Lulu to print my book, list it on the website, and fulfill orders for it. If I’m doing my book through Harlequin Horizons (or whatever its new name is going to be), it’s them-branded, not me-branded. I’m paying them, in part, for their name.”

Aha. So a self-published novel would carry the author’s original imprint name on the spine, and an assisted self-published novel would carry the publisher’s name on the spine. Okay, that can go on the checklist.

At least the question of who controls the ISBN isn’t being questioned. If you self-publish, it’s your ISBN. If you go with an assisted publishing option, it’s the publisher’s ISBN. As Victoria points out, “Lulu and CreateSpace let you use your own ISBN.”

So…the new distinction (at least, according to me):

If you self-publish, it’s your imprint name and your ISBN.

If you assisted self-publish, it’s the publisher’s imprint name and the publisher’s ISBN.

Yes? Good? (Feel free to disagree. I’m still trying to wrap my arms around this.)

Now, this does not change my opinion on publishers who mark up their services astronomically. I think that stinks. And while I can see that getting a profit even after an author pays upfront fees isn’t out of the ordinary, I still don’t like it. I think that’s raking the author over the coals. And I will continue to shout from the top of my lungs that authors should be paid for their work. As my friend Sue pointed out, we don’t show up for work and expect not to be paid, do we? Of course not. I still firmly believe that assisted publishing hurts authors.

If you choose to self-publish, either using a POD printer or an assisted self-publisher, I urge you to get all the costs spelled out **before you sign a contract.** Don’t get a second mortgage so you can self-publish your book. Please don’t.

Because really, at this point, all I can say is: “Self-publisher beware.”