Don’t Use Kickstarter Funds To Publish Through A Vanity Press

Fear The Penguin!

As I’ve discussed previously, among my biggest pet peeves are the predatory practices of vanity press companies like Author Solutions (which is part of the Penguin Group) and its subsidiaries, which take terrible advantage of authors by hoodwinking them into paying outrageous sums of money to get their books published. What’s even worse is the number of aspiring authors lately who are not only falling into this trap, but dragging other unwitting folks into the tar pit by asking them to pledge money to Kickstarter projects the authors set up to pay for their vanity press publishing packages. No. No, no, no!

If you haven’t heard of Kickstarter, it’s basically a way for people with project ideas who need funding to find financial backers, most of whom are just regular folks willing and able to contribute a small amount of money. But, like interest, small amounts add up.

I think Kickstarter is a fantastic idea. But I think raising Kickstarter money to publish through a vanity press like Author Solutions is lunacy (for a great rundown on Author Solutions and author exploitation in general, check out David Gaughran’s blog). The would-be author is asking people to fund a book project that is never going to get anywhere and will never make back what the author and his or her supporters have put into it. Why? Because these companies make their money from the authors, not by selling books. If you ask people to fund your project and then hand the money to a vanity press, you may as well have just thrown it out into the street. Actually, that would be better, because the people who snatch up the money could put it to better use.

The reason I’m fired up about this particular issue is that it came up the other day with a relation of one of my wife’s friends, and I’ve also gotten several messages on Twitter asking me to support Kickstarter projects for authors going to publish with Author Solutions companies.

Maybe if I shout this here it’ll be loud and clear:

Handing over your book to companies like Author Solutions that demand a big wad of cash up front from you, the author, is not self-publishing, it is vanity press publishing. There is a huge difference, and it is a terrible thing for the author. Do not do it.

With true self-publishing, the amount of money you need up front ranges from absolutely zip to perhaps a couple/few thousand dollars to pay for specific things that many folks aren’t able to do themselves. The two most common examples that immediately come to mind of things that might be expensive enough to warrant a Kickstarter project are cover art, which can range anywhere from $50 to over $400, and professional editing, which can be as much as a few thousand dollars for a full-length novel (prices will vary, of course), although I’ve found that you can often find people to do a very creditable job of editing for free or very minimal cost. You could also come up with some other innovative Kickstarter projects, like funding the production of an audiobook or translating the book into other languages.

In my mind, all those would be very positive uses of Kickstarter funds for a novel that you self-publish. Because at the end of the day, the author remains in control of their work. You retain all the rights, other than the nonexclusive rights you grant to retailers like Amazon to sell your work on your behalf for a cut of the revenue. You remain in control, so if you want to change the price of your work to be more competitive or for a special promotion, you can. If you want to make it free as a loss leader (a book you give away to entice readers to buy your other books), you can. You can do whatever you want with it to help it grow and entertain or inform readers.

If you pay for a vanity press to take care of it, you won’t have all that. What’s more, at the prices they set on their books, you’ll never make back what you put into it. Not even close. Why? Because no one’s going to buy books at premium prices from an unknown author. And the vanity press company you paid to publish your book doesn’t care, because they already made their money from you. That’s how their business model is set up; proceeds from any book sales is just the icing on their cake. Yes, they have all kinds of fancy rhetoric up front about how they can “help” you, but once they have your money for one of their packages (that often range into the thousands of dollars), you’re just another sucker. I’m sorry to put it so bluntly, but that’s the truth. Just…don’t…do it.

So, if you’re going to use Kickstarter to help fund your book project for cover art, editing, etc., I think that’s great. Just please don’t give away that money to a vanity press company, because in the end it’s not just you getting screwed, it’s all the people who believed in you enough to give you their hard-earned money.

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