Self Publishing Vs Mainstream Publishing Vs Vanity Publishing

There are only really 3 publishing models but lots of different names for vanity publishing…

1. Paid For Publishing aka “Vanity Publishing”: If you pay someone else to publish your book it could be called collaborative publishing, cooperative publishing, subsidy publishing or (most misleadingly of all) self publishing but it’s really just vanity publishing with a more acceptable title.
2. Self Publishing: No matter what the vanity press says – it’s not self publishing unless you’re doing it all yourself. Obviously you may employ people to provide certain skills but you are still the publisher and the buck (or should that be book) stops with the author and only the author.
3. Mainstream Publishing: These people will be offering to pay you for your book. There’s a lot of competition here so fewer and fewer publishers are offering big (or any) advances anymore. However – they won’t expect you to pay them a penny for your book and they will expect to be sending you royalties.

Here’s a quick matrix so you can compare some of the main differences…

Click To Enlarge & Print

You’ll notice this matrix contains two self-publishing models. We recommend using Print on Demand for the easiest and lowest risk approach to this undertaking – but there are certainly times when you’d want to go for a traditional print run.

Next let’s drill down to look at how the various publishing models work for the publishers and the authors…