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| Abi and her friend, Jess, have only days to help a ghost who haunts the marsh and old farmhouse in Pine Hill, Virginia. Illustration of Abi is by Danika Corrall, who illustrated Secret in the Mist. |
By Linda Wilson -- Follow me on Facebook
A vanity press is a publishing company that charges authors to publish their work. Vanity presses profit from fees authors pay for their services. Legitimate publishing companies make their money from book sales.
Empty Promises to Unassuming Authors
Vanity presses have a bad reputation, largely earned by many companies who promise authors the moon and often fail to deliver, often in significant ways.
I tell this cautionary tale for two reasons. One is that a friend of mine fell prey to a vanity press just last week. She paid a nominal fee for them to publish a picture book written by her husband. It is a work in progress.
The online headline for my friend’s company, we’ll call Company A, goes something like this:
Ready to Share Your Story with the World?
Book your Free Consultation today!
We focus on:
Turning your book into a successful career through a range of services designed to support authors from manuscript to marketplace.
We offer:
Ghostwriting Book marketing
Editing Branding
Sounds promising, doesn’t it? But what if this vanity press has additional or hidden charges? And they don’t follow through with their promises? Authors who have signed up with vanity presses have been known to wait months and months for their book to be published, if it gets published at all. So far, the verdict is out on how my friend and her husband will fare. They’re waiting with bated breath to see the results.
That brings me to the other reason I’m telling this cautionary tale. Moi. I signed with a vanity press for my first book more than five years ago. I was thrilled. I’d found my publisher—for life. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
My Own Cautionary Tale
I lived in a small town when I signed up with my vanity press, we’ll call Company B. I had just begun writing books for children after writing articles and stories for newspapers and magazines. There were no resources in my town for children’s authors at the time: no critique groups; no Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, SCBWI, meetings; no network of other children’s authors and illustrators. I looked online and, like my friend, signed up immediately with Company B.
Unfortunately for me, I paid thousands of dollars thinking I was making an investment in my future as a children’s author with a stellar company. I need to give credit where credit is due, however. I did benefit from the services Company B offered:
- A tutorial program for new authors
- Professional editing of my book
- An illustrator for my book
I learned a lot from the tutorial program. Later, I discovered that the editor and illustrator were not inhouse but had been contracted out. Luckily, they did topnotch work.
My book was ready. The next keystroke on my computer was to obtain the two files—the text and the illustrations—and load them onto Amazon for publishing. But somehow, the files were unattainable. Emails to my rep went unanswered.
While in the throes of wondering what to do, I happened to be reading 10 Publishing Myths: Insights Every Author Needs to Succeed, by W. Terry Whalin. My eyes popped out when I got to page three. Whalin writes:
Use Google to see what is online. Type: Publisher name + complaint then read a page or two of the entries. Are the complaints new or old? Are there many entries or few?
Whalin goes on to give sage advice for authors to avoid myths like the one I fell for.
My answer came as soon as I typed in Company B + Complaints. The internet was flooded with complaints. Long story short: one of the owners had created a Ponzi-type scheme. He’d collected the money from the authors but never paid any royalties. The company was shutting down, going out of business.
I immediately wrote to the rep I worked with and requested my files. I’d caught her just days before she was leaving for good. She sent me my files. Many authors never received their files. Some of the authors began a website that exists to this day. I found out: I was one of the lucky ones.
By being in touch on the website, we hired an attorney who lived in the same town as the company. He charged a nominal fee. Many of us bought in, including me. He began a class action lawsuit. Nothing ever came of it for me. I’m not sure about the others but last I heard this previous Company B owner had absconded to live on an island. It sounds ridiculous, but as far as I know that’s what happened.
That’s actually how I became a self-published author. Finally, using the files sent to me by Company B, I self-published my first children’s book, Secret in the Stars: An Abi Wunder Mystery.
Here is a partial list of vanity press companies to avoid. Please note that I’ve looked up each one on Google. They do exist and can be found online:
- Page Publishing
- Xlibris Publishing
- Austin Macauley Publishers
- Christian Faith Publishing
- American Star Books
- Author Solutions
- iUniverse
- Olympia Publishing
- Dorrance Publishing
- Newman Spring Publishing
- Balboa Press
- Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie ltd
- Abbott Press
- Partridge Publishing
- Palibrio or Author House
Red Flags to Watch Out For
- Charging large up-front fees
- Flattery and pressure
- Lack of transparency
- Poor quality work
- Requirement to purchase bulk copies
- Verbal promises not in written contract
- Fake affiliations
- Promise to distribute your book, when in reality, your book is only added to a list
Bottom Line
Research carefully. Trust your gut.
Sources:
Visit Danika Corrall, the designer of my website and illustrator of Secret in the Mist:
Article sources:
https://reedsy.com/blog/scams-and-publishing-companies-to-avoid/
https://reedsy.com/blog/vanity-press/
Author of many books, including 10 Publishing Myths: Insights Every Author Needs to Succeed, can be found here:
Please note: Go to Terry Whalin's website and add your name to receive a PDF of an extra chapter not included in the book: The 11th Publishing Myth.
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| Secret in the Mist, the second book in the Abi Wunder Mystery trilogy, will be published early next year and will be available for purchase on Amazon. |
7 comments:
Linda, this is such an important reminder for authors. There are lots of vanity presses that prey on authors. A number of my clients have fallen into their traps. It's a must that we keep on guard. But, there are also legit self-publishing services that help authors cross the publishing finish line. Authors must research before jumping in.
Linda,
Thank you for this important article and including a link to my website in it. As writers we need to learn as much as we can about the different ways to publish, ask good questions and make wise decisions. David Hancock, the founder of Morgan James Publishing, has a new book called The Babylon Blueprint for Authors with great free or low-cost marketing ideas but also 40 pages comparing traditional/ self-publishing/ hybrid. You and others can get a free copy at: The Babylon Blueprint for Authors
Terry author of Book Proposals That $ell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success (Revised Edition) [Follow the Link for a FREE copy]
Thank you, Karen. Yes, authors need to make sure of any company before signing up.
Thank you, Terry. And thanks for the copy of David Hancock's book!
Terry, thanks for the free download of The Babylon Blueprint for Authors!
Thanks for sharing this article. As a first time author, I had a terrible experience with a vanity press operating under the name Novel House Publishing. The owner uses deceptive marketing language like "Publishing Agent" to make you think they are just as reputable as traditional publishers.
The publisher, Evie Bernal, only contracted me for 1 service which she described as "basic editing" on April 2025. After 22 days, my material was supposedly edited, and the publisher then began selling me something that she called "Publishing Package" (she uses this misleading terminology instead of calling it distribution).
So on June 2025, she wrote down charges for the platforms. Since I didn't do research, I blindly trusted her and didn't realize until months later that that platforms that she charged me for hundreds of dollars were actually HER prices. The platforms themselves are actually not the actual value. A major problem I also realized later was that she sold the final step of the publishing process when my manuscript was not even edited and DID NOT GO THROUGH ANY EDITING PHASES.
After taking payment for those 4 platforms, she then began performing the steps out of order where cover design and formatting took place. Poor quality of work was done by a middleman she has outsourced my book to some loser in Bangladesh. I decided to do my own developmental and line editing in the next 2 months. By the time, I reached out in December, my whole history was rewritten.
When I called her, she falsely claimed that no publishing process began and her team was only doing editing to my book. I tried to clarify the status, she raised her voice and spoke over me by claiming that I only paid for editing and “publishing package” was not paid yet. She then sent me an ugly pink slip she created after the call where she has falsely bundled all my 3 payments under 1 category of “comprehensive novel editing”.
On December 12, 2025, she pressured me to leave a review in exchange for releasing my completed book cover. In those text messages, Evie Bernal threatened to remove me from her roster if I didn’t decide right on spot and respond fast to her. In fact, legal counselors told me that she was threatening to hold my cover hostage if I don't comply with her demands.
I remained professional and gave her a response with listing her own prices she quoted for the platforms. She retaliated instead by revealing that the price for IngramSpark is $1,299. She then began calling immediately after I walked away as a desperate attempt to pull me back into the predatory relationship I had with her.
Everything I experienced from her unprofessional behavior to her fraudulent documents, the bait-and-switch pricing, and the lack of transparency in her work ethics exactly matches how vanity presses operate.
After that, her own subsequent communications reveal she was actively expecting a guaranteed, uncontracted upsell. I blocked that woman so she began sending me unsolicited emails stating: "Plus I thought you will buy the publication package." Her written statement that she "thought" I would purchase an additional package proves that her hostile mention of "roster removals" and presumptive framing of decision as “not moving forward” was done to put a fast pressure and trigger panic.
Vanity publishers like her PREY on authors who are eager to publish their books. She knew I was willing to pay and invest for her terrible services so she began advancing a sunk cost dependency. arguments mentioning a "free" cover and a complimentary proofread.
After closure of the relationship, the owner then shifted to guilt-tripping language such as “I paid him to do your cover” and emotional pressure to force compliance.
Anyone should save THE NIGHTMARE OF working with vanity presses, because not only is the experience financially a loss, but also it's psychologically damaging to deal with such predators.
S, sorry to hear of your harrowing experience with a vanity press. You're not alone; many new to the writing and publishing arena fall prey to their deceptive practices.
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