If you've been published, PLEASE read this!!

In My Humble Opinion
1

I know that some of the posters here have gotten published, a goal I have been fighting for seemingly forever!!

How many of you published authors have used a Vanity Press or otherwise self published? If you have, was it worth it, did your work sell well and if it did not, was it for some other reason than context, like perhaps poor promotion?

I’ve a box full of rejection notices and I’m starting to get sold, so I’m considering a vanity press as an alternative.

2

(Mutters to self about not proofing work.)

That should read ‘I’m getting oldnot getting sold’.

3

???

I give up. You get the meaning anyhow.

4

I haven’t been published myself, but I do have a wonderful collection of rejection letters. Some of them aren’t even form letters! Yay me! sigh…

My latest rejection came from the Writers of the Future contest. Orson Scott Card was one of the judges! My favorite author. My idol. He read my work and said “sorry, not good enough.” sigh…

So I sent another story to the contest yesterday.

5

If you’ve used a vanity press, you’re not entitled to complain about poor promotion.

All the copies that were printed showed up at your house in a carton, along with the bill.

If you want to sell them, promote them, publicize yourself, or just put them out in the garage, that’s your business and only yours.

No one else has any investment in those books. You paid a printer for work which is now complete.

6

There are advertisements for this place called “Vanity Press,” and I got a book by them some years ago. They will take your precious baby, read it, critique it, rip it’s guts out and put them back in, then send it back with an opinion as to whether or not it is print worthy and, if not, suggestions for corrections accompany it. If print worthy, for a fee (back then, it was $5000), they will print it, create cover art, which you have to approve, then promote it and set up ‘meet the author’ episodes at book stores you can get to. There’s more to it, like copywriting and stuff.

I actually have purchased some books off of the shelves published by Vanity Press.