Groundbreaking Press vs.
The Vanity Publisher and Subsidy Press

Written by Brad Fregger, Founder/President/CEO

Often when I'm trying to explain what we do, I'll get the question, "So you're a vanity publisher ... right?"

To which I respond, "No, we are not a vanity publisher! We're an author-services company."

"What's the difference?"

That's what this paper is about: the significant differences between Groundbreaking Press and the vanity publishers (also known as subsidy publishers).

First, let's define our terms:

Subsidy Press - Printing companies who provide printing and binding services to self-publishing authors. Subsidy presses usually provide instructions, even templates, to make it easier for the author to layout their book and design their cover. They provide no editing, copyediting, or proofing services. With a subsidy press, you will need to obtain the ISBN number.

Vanity Publisher - Publishers who profess to take an author's manuscript, prepare it for publication, printing, and binding, and deliver a completed product to the author. Vanity publishers do provide layout and cover design services, however, they most often use simple templates, much like those provided to the author by the subsidy presses. While some state that they provide editing, copyediting, or proofing services ... authors need to be extremely vigilant as these services are not often up to standards.

Author-Services Company - This is the category that Groundbreaking Press falls into. Author-Services companies are a relatively new phenomena, possible only because of the digital revolution in the publishing industry. We provide all of the services an author needs to move from manuscript to completed book. In this way, we can guarantee that the author's book will published at the quality level demanded by the publishing industry (reviewers, distributors, and booksellers). 

What Do Vanity Publishers Do?

Essentially, vanity publishers turn your manuscript into a book with a binding and a cover.  In the process, they may charge you for all services, including editing, copyediting, cover production, and printing and binding. In our experience, vanity publishers spend very little time or effort on any of the book production services, essentially, they publish the book as it was sent to them by the author. Additionally, they tend to use simple templates for layout and the cover. All of this tends to result in a book that doesn't quite make it to the level expected by the retail bookseller. There are exceptions, of course, however, most of the time it's the author who has demanded, and therefore received, an acceptable level of service. Sadly, most authors are focused on content and tend to miss the errors in grammar and layout that are so obvious to the reader. For example, we recently received a book from an author that had been published by a major vanity publisher. We were asked to evaluate the book ... while there were numerous grammatical and spelling errors, not to mention errors in redundancy, consistency, and clarity, the most egregious errors were the line breaks (carriage returns to you typists) in the middle of sentences.  

In addition, vanity publishers require exclusive distribution rights, and usually all subsidiary rights (audio, electronic, TV, movies, and so on). You will receive a small royalty for every book they sell (except, of course, for the ones you purchase) and a limited quantity of "free" books. If you want additional copies of your book, they will sell them to you at a 25-40% discount off the retail price. This means that the author is purchasing the book at a price equal to (or more than) what retail would purchase it for, making it impossible for the author to sell their books into the retail market, including local bookstores. While I'm sure this is negotiable, there's no doubt that authors will be able to purchase their books for significantly less from a subsidy press or author-services company.

Usually the author doesn't have control over the cover (list) price of the book.  Some vanity publishers push the cover price as high as possible, knowing that most of the sales are going to the author anyway. After all, they are selling the books to the author at a price discounted from the list price. Regarding the royalties, it's a moot point--it's extremely rare for a vanity published book to see the shelf of a retail bookstore.

Not only won't you get retail distribution, but you will probably not get the chance for library distribution. Neither of these sales channels take vanity published books very  seriously (although, the truth be known, these channels do not tend to take author-funded books of any kind very seriously either). There is little chance for your book to ever become known outside of your personal circle of relatives, friends, and associates.

So why do people do business with them? The main reason is that authors with completed, or nearly completed, manuscripts can't be happy until they see their books in print.  And, in case you haven't heard, getting a book into publication can be ten times harder than writing it. Vanity publishers publish without judgment; for some authors, this seems to be their only chance at publication.

What Do Subsidy Presses Do?

Much like, vanity publishers, subsidy presses turn your manuscript into a book with a binding and a cover.  The big difference is that subsidy presses are not the publisher of your book, you are. This means that you have full responsibility for the book's production (editing, copyediting, and layout), some subsidy presses provide cover design services and often do a pretty decent job. You are responsible for getting the ISBN Number, and for the book's distribution.

While a certain level of distribution is available from some of the larger subsidy presses, most of them do not provide any distribution at all. This means that, if you want your book available for purchase on the Internet or through special orders at a bookstore, you will have to arrange this. So, you must find a distributor and, depending on the subject area, finding a distributor can be both expensive and difficult.

Using a subsidy press is a good idea if you are completely confident that you can get the book produced at a high quality level, and, if you are very well acquainted with the market you want to sell your book into. This is especially true if you are a speaker, you plan on selling most of your books yourself, and you want to publish your own books.

Just one warning, make sure the company you are dealing with is a subsidy press and not a vanity publisher. This can be confusing at times. Essentially, they are a subsidy press if you are in complete control of the book's production, obtaining ISBN Numbers, and the setting of the retail price (although most authors have no idea of what the list price of their book should be and often set it much to low).

Also, the price you pay per book should be based on the number of pages and not as a discount from the retail price. If you're paying a discounted price, you are doing business with a vanity publisher not a subsidy press or an author-services company.

How Is Groundbreaking Press Different?

Probably the major difference is in our commitment to quality. We won't publish books that don't meet the high standards of the traditional publishing industry, and we will only work with authors that are committed to producing a quality product. We "turn down" about a third of the authors who come to us.

It's our philosophy that everyone's story is important and that we want to make it possible for every author who is compelled to see their story in publication, have that opportunity. But, even more important, we want every story, each message, to have the opportunity to reach a broader market. This can only happen if the book is produced professionally, meaning care is taken in editing, layout, and cover design. The vast majority of books will never achieve this level of distribution, however, producing a quality product is the first step in reaching that allusive goal. We began our business because we discovered for ourselves just how difficult it is to take a book from first-draft manuscript to published book. We want to help authors get through this process and see their books published. 

We're an Author-Services Company. Essentially, the author is funding the publishing of their book, and while there is a strong tradition in the publishing industry not to honor and respect authors who decide to "self publish," author-funded books in general do not get much respect, no matter how well produced they are. But this doesn't mean that you shouldn't publish. There are lots of reasons to publish beyond achieving best-seller status and/or making a lot of money. Besides, many very famous authors self funded their first book (see authors that either persevered after many rejections or self-published and were successful). Brad outlines many of these reasons in his book, Why Publish. There's one very good reason, we cannot depend on traditional publishers to publish the books that tell our civilization's stories and messages ... this responsibility belongs to author-funded publishing.

With Groundbreaking Press the author retains all rights to the book, including: copyright, licensing rights, subsidiary rights, etc.  This is, after all, the author's book, self-published with our help. We have no claim to any of the rights to the author's book, nor do we want any claim. However, since we believe that our efforts are a major part of why the book may be picked up by a major publisher or even made into a movie, we do take 5 to 10 percent of any revenue that author receives from third parties.

Like the vanity publisher we are the publisher of record. but unlike the vanity publisher, we don't give the author a royalty for every book sold or determine the list price. As the publisher, we get a percentage of the books that are sold through our distribution (30% of the revenue generated). However, when an author purchases books from us, they keep all of the proceeds from those sales. Our purchase price to authors is based on the number of pages and is extremely competitive. With many of our books, we are able to even beat the price charged by the subsidy presses for quantities up to 500. And our authors don't have to worry about getting additional copies; these can be printed, bound, and shipped, with normal delivery in about two weeks.

Those are the differences between Groundbreaking Press and vanity publishers and subsidy presses ... seems like a no-brainer to me.

We recommend these Author Resouces for the beginning author or any author that is committed to a career in writing.

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