Self Publishing or Vanity Press?

When I came of age as a writer in the 1980’s, attended the Summer School of the Arts at Fort San, Saskatchewan, met other writers, took more workshops, and met a publisher or two, I and other beginning writers were told, “Don’t send your manuscript to a Vanity Press.” These were the people who would take any manuscript and publish it as long as you paid all the costs (sometimes exorbitant and inflated). They were not considered “legitimate” publishers, because they didn’t have the peer review (writers and editors who looked over and chose manuscripts) that legitimate publishers did, and they usually charged a lot of money to publish your book, did little or no marketing, selling or distribution. So, for a long time, I followed that advice (more in an upcoming blog about why I decided to try self-publishing).

Benjamin Franklin and William Blake set up presses to publish their own work. Jane Austen paid a publisher to privately print Sense and Sensibility. Virgina Woolf and her husband Leonard founded the Hogarth Press (1917) to publish her books and those of others such as T.S. Eliot and Christopher Isherwood. Anais Nin established her own press in 1942, after she had moved back to New York from Paris, and found her work not accepted in America.

Small presses appeared in Canada in the 1930’s and 1940’s to publish literary magazines and small chapbooks. The formation of the Canada Council in 1957 was beneficial because of their program of support for Canadian publishers.

According to the Canadian Encyclopedia on line, “And so, a whole generation of writers, university professors, journalists, former employees of major houses, members of the CBC and Radio-Canada, and neophyte book designers set up as small publishers. Many of these aspiring publishers began their operations in a home or basement or garage, and turned their kitchen tables into editorial offices. They were assisted by part-timers and volunteers, and sometimes even their authors helped with the printing and binding.” Writers such as Irving Layton, Leonard Cohen, Margaret Attwood, and Michael Ondaatje were first published by small presses and went on to international acclaim.

In Saskatchewan, two small presses were founded in the 1970’s. Coteau Books, based in Regina, was formed by four writers from Moose Jaw – Robert Currie, Gary Hyland, Geoffrey Ursell, and Barbara Sapergia. Thistledown Press was founded by poet, teacher and editor, Glen Sorestad, and Neil Wagner, a teacher and artist. It is based in Saskatoon. More small presses sprang up afterwards.

The internet, the World Wide Web, and related technologies, profoundly changed the face of publishing. In the 1997, Lightening Source, one of the largest print-on-demand (POD) companies was founded. (Many exist now). In 2000 Stephen King became the first major author to self-publish a book.
 
In 2008 more books were self-published than published by traditional presses – for the first time in history (source Wikepedia).