On 11 Nov 2006 at 0:28, Peter Salwen wrote:

> As one correspondent remarks, "The line between vanity presses and
> non-vanity presses has been blurred for a long time now."  And how!

I think the emergence of digital print-on-demand publishing is making
dramatic changes in the role of so-called "vanity presses" and I expect
that they will become much more important within the publishing industry
over the next five to ten years, both with printed books and ebooks. Just
in the last three or four years, the cost of print-on-demand publishing for
the average book has dropped from about $1500 to $500. Competition
could drive prices for print-on-demand from PDF files much lower --
perhaps to $100 or less. The $500 they now charge pays for formatting
from regular word processor files, but PDF files are like camera-ready
copy and can be printed just as they are. Print-on-demand publishers
could charge minimal set-up fees for those while still getting their regular
fees for each copy printed. I would not be surprised to see "get
published for $100" ads within the next year.

At the same time, the shift towards digital publishing has changed the
traditional relationship between authors and publishers. Traditional
publishing has become less attractive to writers because publishers are
demanding control of non-print rights and digital publishing will keep
rights from reverting to authors long after the publishers have stopped
printing their books. Many university presses have given Questia.com
permission to reprint their entire back lists online. None of those books
will go "out of print" and the rights will not revert to the authors even
though they may never be available again in print. Anyone who has
written a chapter for a collection of essays or an encyclopedia-type book
in the last five or six years knows that although a chapter for a specific
book may have been requested, authors are asked to sign over all rights
for use in online media, databases, derivitive works, etc. -- and all for no
additional pay. Under those contracts, publishers can profit from the
authors' works forever but the authors will never receive a cent from
later publications of their work.

Print on demand can also be used to make hardcover books available at
lower prices. One book I contributed a chapter to that was published by
Praeger in 2001 sells for $92.50 -- if it sells at all at that price. If the
editor retained paperback rights, she could release a print-on-demand
paperback edition that could sell for as little as $14.95. Now that that's
an easy and inexpensive option, more people ought to retain those
rights when dealing with publishers, or insist on clauses that make
separate paperback editions possible if the publisher doesn't release
one within a year.

Used copies of my out-of-print anthology of Twain's writings on the
Philippine-American War are currently listed at Amazon.com and
Abebooks.com for $90-$153. A print-on-demand edition could be sold
for as little as $15.95. Because authors of print-on-demand books can
set their own prices (adjusting their royalties upward), I would have a
better chance of recouping up-front permission fees if I went that route
than if I gave it to a regular publisher. The university press edition of
that
book was never carried by the book store chains but now a print-on-
demand edition would be carried by Amazon.com, Borders.com and
Barnesandnoble.com. The introduction and about a dozen other
chapters from the book have been available online at my site since the
rights reverted to me in 1998. Most regular publishers would want me to
remove those chapters from the site, but I could keep them online if I
reprinted it through a print-on-demand service.

A friend of mine is currently looking into print-on-demand publishing to
reprint some of his books that were published in Asia but don't have
good distribution in the U.S. He started to think about it after he was
contacted by a community organization here that wanted to reprint one
of his books as a fund-raiser for the organization. That's an interesting
idea. A good list of print-on-demand books could work like an
endowment for a non-profit organization, generating a steady stream of
royalties instead of dividends.

I recently published a book through a print-on-demand service for
another reason that might be unusual but certainly not unique. It was
already being published serially in the journal of an historical society in
Labrador.  I decided to put it out in book form after they received
requests for reprint rights for use in schools there. It already needed to
be revised and expanded, and I might want to revise it again in a year or
two if I find significant new information or am able to find descendents of
the people discussed (the descendents of John Smith -- maybe you
know a few :-). A university press here and a commercial publisher in
Canada were recommended as likely publishers, but if I went that route I
wouldn't be able to revise it until at least the first print run was sold
out.
With print-on-demand, I can put out revised editions as often as I want.
The publisher charges a reasonable fee to update the file they print
from. It's not as flexible as Internet publishing, which can be updated
continually, but it's also not set in stone the way it would be with most
regular publishers.

There are a lot of reasons to use print-on-demand instead of signing
over the rights to books to regular publishers. Although print-on-demand
publishers will probably always be "vanity presses" to some extent, their
primary business could turn much more towards reprinting of out-of-print
books and publication of new books by established authors who see it
as more efficient and profitable and less onerous in terms of their ability
to control the rights in their work. Just as digital publishing is changing
the nature of the business for publishers, the Internet and print on
demand are broadening the options available to authors and making do-
it-yourself publishing a much easier and more attractive option than it
used to be. It also strengthens authors' hands when negotiating with
publishers. Publishers used to have a strong position because if they
didn't publish a book, who would? Now, authors can respond to anything
they don't like in a contract with, "OK, I'll publish it myself instead." My
guess is that publishers would then quickly respond by pointing out the
value -- or "vanity" -- of their names, blurring the line in a very common
but generally unacknowledged way.

Jim Zwick