What is Vanity Publishing?
In simple terms, it gets its name from the idea that when you submit a poem to a Vanity Publishing House, you get a reply
telling you what a wonderful poem it is. Usually the replies are written in extremely glowing terms, but always concluding
with how they would like to publish the poem in an anthology that they are planning to produce very soon.
The Anthology, they will tell you, will only contain work from some of the outstanding poets of the world and you will
be one of them.
Of course at no time will they offer you any payment or royalties, but they will offer you the chance to own one or more of
their high quality bound books with your poem in at a price, which may be quite expensive.
Of course they expect you to be so flattered, that you will stop at nothing to own one of these books along with hundreds
of other poets that have received similar letters.
As the prime target for sales is to the poet, the Vanity Publisher is less concerned about more general sales as they
can make a very good income from the initial order book from the poets. They may or may not register the book with other outlets,
but will seldom actively promote such sales. There is more money to be made from the poets themselves.
Quite often, such targetting is followed up by emails suggesting that they would like to honour your talent at an Awards
Ceremony where you will be presented with a valuable award (perhaps an engraved crystal vase or similar) and you will
be invited to read your poem. You will of course have to contribute to the cost of the award (again usually quite expensive)
which if you are unable to attend will be sent to you.
So in general - You pay at every stage!
It might be cheaper to go to your local store and have a small trophy engraved to yourself.
Who are they?
Well you must determine who these are for yourself as YPS can not within our charter name outside organisations
of this sort. However they all follow this or similar approaches so should be fairly obvious. Don't be put off by the fact
they have apparent credibility. They often have elaborate and good sounding names, websites and advertising. They generally
operate within the law, but morally raise many questions. They make significant money out of you the poet and have many resources
to use to make themselves sound even more credible.
Can they damage a Poet?
Well apart from getting you to part with money that may be better spent, in general, main stream publishers do not like
vanity publishers and may be reluctant to work with poets that have used them. They generally will not accept such as evidence
of having been published.
