I visited with some friends yesterday, which was fun.
During the course of the day, R. mentioned she’d been trying to read a book that was chock full o’ bad editing. She kept bemoaning ‘how could a publisher let such a bad editor work on a book?’ and ‘how could an editor miss such stuff?’ I kept saying ‘how could a writer submit a work that bad?’
When we got back to their place, she got me the book. I saw immediately what the problem was. It was published by PublishAmerica, one of the world’s worst vanity publishers. Their website is pretty and says all the right things that new writers are told to look for. It sounds so perfect, so right, you know? Then you read about writers such as Kate St. Armour. You read about the fake books that they said were great, fantastic, and said they’d publish. You read about copyright/trademark issues. And when the author gurus at AbsoluteWrite say their piece about why they don’t recommend PublishAmerica, well, it is just so difficult to believe PublishAmerica is anything but a big scam. A very big scam.
However, I won’t blame the publisher on the piss-poor writing in the book R. had. That’s the writer’s fault. A book should be as close to perfect as it can be before it is submitted to a publisher. You want them to buy your book and why would you send them something riddled with errors?
And, while on the road of scams, let’s not forget the bad agents out there. Science Fiction Writers of America (sfwa.org) maintains the “Twenty Worst Agents“. Writer Beware bloggers Crispin and Strauss “Twenty Worst Publishers” lists.
I did a LOT of research into selfpublishing. IMO, while there are many drawbacks to it, there are also some benefits.
However, as with considering any publisher, it is up to the writer to do their homework. That means not only choosing a publisher (vanity press or not) it means HIRING a professional editor to edit your book. I don’t care if you are the grammar nazi king and have had several beta readers review it…professional editors look for things that most of us writers (and readers) don’t think about. Things like conflict flow and HOW does this scene move the story along? They look deep into the story for much more than just the basics.
Of course, when you selfpublish, you also need to look into marketing and distributing. Some do provide assistance with this. Some give you an option of purchasing an ISBN. While you should never pay a publisher for publishing your book, there are going to be many things that are still going to need to come out of your pocket.
Unfortunately, far too many writers, in their rush to be published don’t look into all of these aspects. And also, far too many inexperienced writers assume that a beta reader or two (regardless of the experience level of those readers) and the use of Word spell/grammar check gives them a publishable product.
Then again – there are some publishers who really aren’t much better than self-publishers. So it is still up to the writer to do their homework.
There are benefits, yes. Even I will admit that. But since I lack the gumption to even get up in the morning, I also admit I haven’t the needed enthusiasm to self-promote on the level that a vanity press book requires.
I paid a professional editor to go over BGCFA for me. I don’t know that I will need to do it again, but it was an investment well worth the money! I learned sooo much from Robin. She does a lot of work for self-publishing authors.
I decided that if I were going to work so hard on a book with the goal of getting published, then I wanted to be published by a REAL publisher, not a vanity press. I love Regal Crest and have a great relationship with them.