Your readers should understand that I've been as successful as I have as a self-publisher largely because I've worked in publishing since 1985 and did quite well at it, both on-staff for other companies and in command of my own. Now, in (slightly) early retirement, I have the time to pursue it with the energy that it requires. It's a lot tougher being a writer AND and a publisher AND a worker at a day job.
I own a book of 100 ISBNs, but Lulu won't let me use them. This infuriates me, and may eventually force me to move to another service that does.
I think it was in Foucault's Pendulum that Umberto Eco tweaked vanity press by showing us a publishing house with two imprints: One a conventional imprint, and the other a vanity imprint, both located in the same building. The vanity imprint had luxurious offices and gave the impression of great success. The conventional imprint had cramped, shabby offices, and was subsidized by the clueless people who paid the other imprint to publish their writing. It was funny in a slightly painful way when I first read it in 1992, just before my company moved into book publishing from magazine publishing, and even moreso after I had spent more time working in book publishing and listening to stories from old timers about places like Vantage Press. The new Harlequin vanity arm may make money, and if it does, word will get around. It's not a new idea, but it may be about to get a lot more popular.
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I own a book of 100 ISBNs, but Lulu won't let me use them. This infuriates me, and may eventually force me to move to another service that does.
I think it was in Foucault's Pendulum that Umberto Eco tweaked vanity press by showing us a publishing house with two imprints: One a conventional imprint, and the other a vanity imprint, both located in the same building. The vanity imprint had luxurious offices and gave the impression of great success. The conventional imprint had cramped, shabby offices, and was subsidized by the clueless people who paid the other imprint to publish their writing. It was funny in a slightly painful way when I first read it in 1992, just before my company moved into book publishing from magazine publishing, and even moreso after I had spent more time working in book publishing and listening to stories from old timers about places like Vantage Press. The new Harlequin vanity arm may make money, and if it does, word will get around. It's not a new idea, but it may be about to get a lot more popular.