What are subsidy and vanity presses?
The standard publishing procedure is to pay an author for his or her work, usually in the form of copies of the publication, cash, and possibly royalties. Publishers are also responsible for marketing and distributing the work. However, a subsidy press, often called a “vanity press,” is one that produces a book upon payment from the author. Books from these printers are often cheaply produced and do not command respect from readers, libraries, or the media. Since the publishing company is paid up front, it has no incentive to promote or distribute the book, or even to screen the manuscripts that it accepts for publication. Many such presses exist solely for the purpose of making money from writers whose work may otherwise be unpublishable. For this reason, self-published books are ineligible for most reputable book awards–including the Academy’s. On rare occasions, one hears of a writer whose self-published or subsidy-published book became a bestseller, but more often the writer ends
