Vanity publishing has been around probably as long as publishing itself. In an industry where the cost of entry is so high and so lauded, it's hardly surprising that a predatory sibling grew to gobble up the unwary fish. Can't get editors into your book? Come with us, ignore them, let's just focus on making a really great book. Of course, you understand, really great books don't come cheap...

Most authors who've bothered to do more than a modicum of research have the brains to avoid those kinds of deals. But there are other versions of the vanity publisher and similar predatory practices still cropping up today.

Take, for instance, a new e-zine from NextRead. The original submission guidelines, as posted on OF Blog of the Fallen run as follows (emphasis from OF):

• You need to have pre-bought the magazine in order to submit a short story (the magazine will be sent to submission email on launch).
• Submissions will be the authors own work. No collaborations.
• The short story have not appeared elsewhere, even in a modified form.
• Electronic only in .doc, docx, .rtf or .txt formats
• Word limit is  5000 or less
• Short Stories that do not meet the theme will not be considered
• Unless genuine error no refunds will be made.
• Multiple submissions are allowed but each submission will require a pre-purchase of NextRead Magazine
• By submitting you are giving NextSomething via NextRead.co.uk exclusive online use until 1st September 2010. After that date all rights except continual use in issue in which the story appeared revert back to the author.

There was no mention of payment on the original, which means aspiring authors would have to purchase the magazine for each submission, with little to no hope of return. Authors are paying to have their story publishing. Sound familiar? Larry's comment was to wonder why any "true" (I'll read that as "halfway-educated") writer would ever submit to such a magazine. From the rest of the website, I've concluded that the original concept was a magazine built by its readers - that is, a small community contributing stories to each other. Which is a nice idea  as a brain fart, perhaps, but when you bring money into the equation, it turns into an entirely different beast.

Interestingly enough, in the time between Larry's post and this one, the submission guidelines have been reworked:

• Submissions will be the authors own work. No collaborations.
• The short story have not appeared elsewhere, even in a modified form.
• Electronic only in .doc, docx, .rtf or .txt formats
• Word limit is  5000 or less
• Short Stories that do not meet the theme will not be considered
• By submitting you are giving NextSomething via NextRead.co.uk exclusive online use until 1st September 2010. After that date all rights except continual use in issue in which the story appeared revert back to the author.
• Editor’s decision is final

A couple of other points:

• Submissions that selected to appear will receive a small payment equivalent to a Set Meal for One in my local Chinese a Double Cheeseburger (meaning it’s a token payment)
• One story will be starred and that story will receive a book of my choice that fits the theme that edition of the magazine.

Which completely changes the tone of the venture. I suspect the boffins behind the idea realised just what they sounded like - you'll note the original text is still on the site in places with a strike through. So, kudos for seeing the problem with the idea, and addressing it to be less predatory. We'll let slip the fact that anyone dealing with the publishing industry for more than two days really ought to know better, and chalk it up to good intentions misplanned.

We can hope that, with the increasing availability of self-publishing options, vanity publishers are going to disappear, or at least find it a much tougher sell.  Unfortunately, there always seems to be a new stream of wanna-be authors who haven't bothered to actually research their dream. Which I find absurd, in itself, but I was always one to research and plan to far, far beyond what I needed.

Want to avoid getting bitten by the vanity shark? Get yourself educated. Not at university - about the industry. Read blogs. Read a few 'how to get published' books (your local library will have some.) Go to authors' talks, signings and conventions, and talk to people. Don't just hand your money to someone who says they'll make it all happen magically. Or, if you are going to do that, hand it to me. I'll make it all happen magically, for you, yesiree, because you're a special snowflake, and I think your 'just like Twilight but with bananas' idea is perfect for my *cough* publishing line.

It's not hard to find this stuff out. And if people stop falling for it, it won't be there anymore to fall for.

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