Vanity Cont'd

I'm making a note never to comment on vanity, small-presses and what constitutes publishing in general again. Bloggers and message board owners think they own the new presses and more will be duped into thinking the same is true of publishing. It's still the old fashioned way that works. Mail it in an take your chances. Everyone knows who the players are and the ones that don't are out of the way anyway. It's not worth the vendetta from the believers' crusade.


Visitors seeking real information about anything to do with writing would be well served to question anyone who wants to redefine established publishing definitions to suit themselves. If more people had been careful to see warning flags when someone wants to redefine terms to suit some agenda, PA would have far fewer victi...um...authors.

Posted by: gran | March 10, 2005 11:04 AM

They may hope to make a profit from getting readers, unlike PA, but there certainly is no "objective" consideration filter if you will, as to what the product is and who the author and their qualifications are, to take a chance on.

Try that on a commercial publisher and see what you get. Gary Kessler used Winterwolf to write a book about publishing. The books are POD only but I'm sure there will be exceptions of shelf placement and reviews. There was with PA too, so the blurring is not my invention as claimed by Ms. Fields. I don't care what they do. These new model instant small presses are yet another permutation of the "we publish anyone" press as well-intentioned and tweeked for the good, as they may well be. There is no filter as we know that to be in general. No filter=vanity press.

The clientel are the evidence. Vanity is lack of a filter. The desire to reject based on the market, offering, and reputation or lack thereof of the writer.