Vanity Presses vs Self-Publishing Service — Publishing Your Own Book

"Vanity publishing" or "vanity press" are publishing terms that describe a publisher who creates bound copies of books for authors for a fee, generally for personal reasons. While there are many similarities, "self-publishing" or, sometimes, "DIY publishing" is a more recent term which refers to the process by which an author publishes his or her own work into the trade book marketplace, hoping to sell it to a wide audience.

Vanity presses or vanity publishing...
Vanity presses have long existed to allow any author have his or her desired content bound between two covers. Vanity presses have typically been engaged to produce copies of books with a limited audience, such as family genealogies, corporate histories, or sometimes personal collections of poems or recipes. Note that the term vanity press has traditionally had a slight stigma attached to it in the trade publishing world, and vanity publishers don't generally describe themselves as such.


In earlier times, before e-books and print-on-demand technologies, vanity presses required the author to purchase a substantial number of copies of his or her book upfront. Technological limitations of traditional book printing and binding processes, as well as the economic realities of book production, made small-scale vanity publishing an expensive proposition. And because they traditionally didn't offer much in the way of book distribution or book marketing or publicity support, naive or uninformed authors who had expectations of sales beyond a small circle of friends and family were sometimes faced with a basement or garage full of leftover vanity press books.

Vanity presses still exist to provide editorial-to-book binding service to those who are willing to pay for the publishing service. Traditional vanity publishers may still be the choice for companies and individuals who want the full service publishing experience, who want to give away a physical, hardcover print book to their audience, and who have the means to pay a premium for the service. There is some crossover between vanity presses and full service self-publishing services.

Vanity publishing vs. self-publishing
In the 21st century, print-on-demand technologies have made it possible to print and bind small quantities of printed self-published books, allowing the author to produce only what he or she wants to keep and allowing a single reader to buy a single book "on demand." E-book technologies have made it easy and inexpensive to upload and widely distribute digital content, so writers can even publish stories to readers with no printing at all.

Digital technologies have also changed the way books—both e-books and print books—are distributed and marketed.

Internet book sales and distribution channels
Internet sales and distribution channels, begun by Amazon.com, dramatically changed the way print books were sold to consumers. Online retailers have created sales channels for e-books uploaded through selected services, as well. For example, Barnes & Noble's PubIt! books are sold through on bn.com. Print-on-demand services (such as Blurb) make it easy for anyone to order a printed book from their websites, and so have create alternate, easy-to-access online sales channels for print-on-demand books, as well.

Online book marketing and publicity
Other digital forces, such as the proliferation of blogs-as-periodicals and social media, have made it possible for a savvy author to promote his or her book through internet channels at low cost. An example of a successfully self-published and self-promoted e-book author is Amanda Hocking, who writes in the paranormal genre. These factors have changed the vanity publishing landscape and made self-publishing viable option for many writers and other creative people who want to sell their work, but who have not been successful at finding a literary agent to represent them or a traditional trade house to publish their book.

As a result, there's been a proliferation of self-publishing companies—many of which, like iUniverse, offer a comprehensive range of services to rival any trade publishing house. But successful self-publishing takes as much research, work and knowledge as one presumably (and should have!) spent writing a book—especially if intending to sell it to strangers on the strength of the book's content.

Should you self-publish? Read more about the reasons to self-publish before you decide, or read reviews of other authors' self-publishing experiences.

If you've self-published your own book, feel free to submit a review your self-publishing service to share your experience with About.com readers (and show us a copy of your book jacket!)