The question is: Who is going to read what you write?

And: What is the motivation for writing?

Is it primarily to express oneself?

To convey ideas to others?

To make money?

Why does one want to write anything in the first place?

What are the consequences of what one writes?

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In conclusion, I think you should conceive of yourself more as a businessman (Henry Baum the publisher who is handling the work of Henry Baum the author).

Best regards,

Mei Ha

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Instead of self-publishing, why not think in terms of “starting your own publishing company.” Then you are separating the writerly dimension from the business dimension (two forms of creativity).

If you are a writer who starts his own publishing company, then you (as the business person) are the producer or director–who is guiding the process of publishing your own book.

If you publish with a Vanity Press, you may still have the pleasure of getting your ideas into print, but then you have abandoned the business dimension (for the most part) to someone else. I think you have to place more emphasis on the business dimension of your identity as a writer.

This doesn’t mean compromising at all.

It simply means that you take into hands the responsibility for producing and directing the publication of your own book. You develop an identity–PUBLISHER–that is somewhat separate from your other identity–WRITER

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Better than many traditionally published books. There should be no stigma at all with independent publishing. Friends, it’s all about the story. The book. Why all the rest of these ego trips??

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Vanity publishers have a right to charge for certain services and authors need to weigh the options. I’m getting a sense of some nanny state kind of legislation here. That writers need to be protected from themselves, when a great deal of the onus is on the writer doing his or her homework.

Dick: “The reason is that the vanity press’s only criterion for “accepting” a book for publication is that the author’s check clears.”

How is this any different than me paying Lightning Source a set-up fee or hiring a printing company for a print run? Even if the author owns the ISBN, it all boils down to the author paying to publish.

Frankly, I don’t know why this argument needs to be made. This is a good point: “They should also end up with a better product, because the professionals they work with in true self-publishing are craftspeople with personal reputations at stake, unlike the nameless, outsourced, underpaid, under-motivated vendors the vanity presses employ.”

However, I’ve read some good iUniverse/Xlibris books, so I don’t think you can paint so broad a brush that vanity-press books are bad any more than you can say all self-published books are bad.

adding later…I can’t know for certain but I would venture to guess that the quality of writing via Lulu is probably worse overall than books from Author Solutions. That Author Solutions costs some money to set-up and Lulu doesn’t might act as some kind of filter, so the quality of books could actually be better.

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It hasn’t been a great week for publishing…period.

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ok, then, let the scams begin!

-bowerbird

p.s. love the ad for authorhouse
on the front page of your website.
how much do you get per click?
that’s how much your soul is worth?

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