What’s the Difference Between an Author, a Publisher, a Self-Publisher, a Vanity Publisher and a Printer?

100 years ago, publishing was a fairly simple affair — if you printed a book and sold it, you were the publisher. Times changed, and the copyright system altered the rules a bit: whoever was legally entitled to print the book at the discretion of the copyright holder became the publisher. And now, with the advent of the Information Age, there are even more ways to publish a book, and it’s hard for many outside the industry to know who the true publishers are!

Fortunately, there is a starting point…

…and it’s called an International Standard Book Number, or ISBN. These numbers were first established in 1966 as a means of keeping track of commercial books, and they’ve since become the primary identification system for books sold around the world. In the United States, a publisher must obtain ISBNs from R. R. Bowker and register themselves to correspond to their numbers if they want to sell books. The most simple method for determining who the publisher of a book is, then, is to find out who owns the ISBN, or at least who owned it when the book was actually printed and sold.

But this litmus test doesn’t work for everything, and since there are many different types of people and companies involved in the publishing process, it’s probably a good idea to start defining them.

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Author: The creator of a piece of intellectual property. This term is generally related to writing, but the most general definition of “author” means “creator” and applies to anyone who has recorded an idea of any sort. Thus I am the author of this website, Leonardo da Vinci is the author of the Mona Lisa, and God is (presumably) the author of the Ten Commandments, with Moses simply playing the role of secretary.

An author may sell his or her rights to an intellectual property to another party, but originally, the author owns the copyright as well. Copyright does not begin when ideas are published; it begins when they are first recorded. (Remember: at its most basic meaning, “Copyright” simply means “the right to make copies.” An idea must exist in some recorded form to be copied.) But it’s difficult to prove copyright without a published document of some sort, which is likely why many authors get confused about the issue.

Literary Agent: A professional who works on behalf of an author to sell his or her work to prospective publishers. The agent does not purchase the author’s intellectual property or take possession of the copyright or ISBN; the agent simply acts as an intermediary in exchange for a commission, much like a realtor helping a family to sell their house.

Publisher: In the broadest sense, the publisher is the business entity that creates the packaging through which an author’s property can reach an audience. A publisher does not print a book, but it designs, markets and sells it. Generally, the publisher owns the book’s ISBN and design rights. In some cases, the publisher also owns the copyright to the work or even the story’s premise, world and characters.

The title of “published author” carries a mystical connotation among writers, separating the pros from the amateurs. But all the phrase really means is that a writer convinced a business to package his or her work for sale.

Printer: A printer is not a publisher; it’s simply a company contracted to produce books by printing pages and binding them together.

Many people have trouble differentiating the process of printing from the process of publishing, so here’s a practical parallel. Say you’re producing a newsletter for your family’s annual Christmas card, and you create the original document on your computer. The process of creating and finishing that document is similar to publishing; you start from scratch, author, design and create that document, and prepare it for distribution. When you run to your local Kinko’s and run off 50 copies, that’s just like printing. Kinko’s isn’t doing any of the creative work; they don’t own the newsletter or have any input into what it says. They’re just putting ink on paper for you.

That’s a printer. And, like Kinko’s, they usually get no credit for their role in production, because no one really cares who did the printing — they care far more about the quality of the final product.

Print on Demand (POD) Printer: Print On Demand is a relatively new process that involves using laser printers to produce books instead of traditional “offset” printing presses. POD offers publishers the ability to print small quantities of books cheaply, which is useful for publishers who are producing niche or vanity titles. A POD printer is a company that provides this service to publishers; they do not deal with authors.

Print on Demand (POD) Publisher: Also known as a POD Broker, this is a company that offers POD services to authors at a markup. POD publishers often are intermediaries who outsource their printing. These companies are generally considered to be shady operations that take advantage of would-be authors by offering them the chance to be “published,” but forcing them to pay most of the setup fees.

POD Publishers have a reputation for dishonestly, and often charge authors far more than they would pay if they simply self published on their own. They also tend to keep the lion’s share of the profits. POD Publishers almost always retain ISBNs, making it difficult for the authors they contract to reprint the book elsewhere when they realize they’ve been had.

Vanity Publisher: Similar to the POD Publisher, a Vanity Publisher seeks out would-be authors who would like to publish their books, but who don’t have the confidence or the commercial appeal to publish through a major publisher. Vanity Publishers go one step further than POD publishers by requiring the authors to “buy in” to a set number of copies of their book to help cover the costs of printing. Rarely do these books make it beyond the author’s personal circle. Though vanity publishers claim they have ties to distribution networks, they are generally looked down upon by the bulk of the publishing industry.

One scam involves approaching professionals in science or medicine and offering them the chance to be published in books that feature articles from famous or respected people. Though these articles are usually reprints, they are presented as being written for the collection. The author submits an article and â€œbuys inâ€ to the book, assuming that it will one day appear on bookstore shelves. The vanity publisher makes no effort to sell the title and uses the same set of articles to lure in other victims, printing essentially the same book several times, but each with one article by a different would-be author.

Another common scam are the “Who’s Who” books, which tell prospective clients that they will be listed in a prestigious tome alongside other academic or industry leaders. All they need to do is “buy in” to receive their copy. The publisher will usually claim that the book will be registered at the Library of Congress, which makes it sound official, but which actually means nothing since virtually every publisher registers books there.

Self-Publisher: An author who goes into the business of publishing his or her own material, assuming all the costs and responsibilities of a publishing company. The self-publisher owns his or her own ISBNs, registers published titles for copyright protection, and hires contractors for services like printing, cover design, pagination, and editing. Thus a self-publisher is really just a publisher in the early stages of operations. Many self-publishers eventually become small publishers.

Small Publisher (a.k.a. Independent Publisher): A business entity that publishes books, but generally for a small or targeted audience. Small publishers own their own ISBNs and generally contract authors for work. Most publishers are small publishers. The largest small publishers are sometimes called “mid-range publishers.”

Trade Publisher: A term for mass-market publishers like Harcourt, Random House, Thomas-Nelson, Penguin, and so forth. These publishers are generally very large, based (partially or fully) in New York City or London, and well established. Most operate multiple imprints so that they can narrow their marketing efforts for individual lines of books. Trade Publishers usually own all their own ISBNs and design work, but if they are operating imprints, they generally register their ISBNs under their imprints to make it easier to transfer ownership of an imprint’s books should they decide to sell one to another company.

Imprints: Subsidiary publishers that are either owned by a larger company or who have a contractual relationship with a larger publisher. For example, Vertigo is an imprint of DC Comics, but also owned by DC (and parent company Time-Warner). Dabel Brothers Publishing is technically an imprint of Del Rey Books, though the company is independently owned. The publisher Del Rey Books, which produces sci-fi and fantasy novels, is an imprint of Ballantine books, which is an imprint of Random House. Del Rey Books also has its own imprint, Del Rey Manga.

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If you are looking for a publisher for your book, it’s absolutely vital that you understand the differences between all of these categories, because the publishing industry is filled with predators who are more concerned with making a fast buck than they are with ensuring that your book will make you rich. And I’m not just referring to the obvious bad guys like POD Publishers and Vanity Publishers, either; many authors fall victim to agents, small publishers and trade publishers as well.

One famous example includes Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, who created the character of Superman only to lose him to their publisher due to their lack of business savvy. Siegel & Shuster spent decades bitterly trying to make a living once they were removed from their own creation, until finally, in the 1970s, public outcry led Warner Communications (who had since become the owner of the character) to offer both men a limited pension with benefits.

Another example involves Peter S. Beagle, a writer who is considered by many to be one of the best fantasy writers of all time, made famous by his 1968 title, The Last Unicorn. Beagle has written over a dozen fantasy titles, but he’s spent most of his life working as a freelance copywriter because his fiction has made him very little money (despite its success!). What many people do not realize about Beagle is that he wrote the screenplay for the film J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings back in the 1970s and was ripped off in a big way by producer Saul Zaentz. Beagle has also received very little in the way of licensing monies from other products, including the animated version of The Last Unicorn, due to what seems to have been poor advice from his agents. He’s a successful author with an impressive set of books under his belt, but he’s struggled to put food on his table for most of his life.

Most authors who are taken advantage of by others within the publishing industry never see their work succeed, and thus never find out what might have happened. It can be a sad cycle, and it’s one of the primary reasons I advocate self-publishing over submitting books to a publisher or agent. After all, why put yourself in a position to be taken advantage of when you can make the same amount of money and exercise more control over your book by simply self-publishing?

One argument is that self-publishers don’t gain the level of national exposure that authors who publish through trade publishers do. But that argument isn’t as compelling as it might seem when you consider that self-publishers can always license printings to publishers down the road if a book appears to be commercially successful. What’s more, in doing so, an author can remain true to his or her vision of the text and license the work based on its merits and not on a perceived notion of its commercial viability.

The other is that self-publishing costs money, which many writers do not have. But think about this for a moment. With Print-on-Demand printing as an option, an author’s initial costs can be well under $1500 after purchasing a set of ISBNs, hiring a cover designer, hiring a paginator, and setting up a print run with a POD company. The author can then begin selling the book immediately, and he or she will only need to sell 100-200 copies at cover price to make that initial investment back. These days, $1500 can be easily charged on a credit card. If an author believes in his or her book enough to seek a publisher, why not put their money where their mouth is and shoot for higher returns?

Writing Scraps

by Sean J. Jordan