About Vanity Publishing

What is Vanity Publishing? What is a Vanity Publisher?

A vanity publisher is:

"any company which charges a client to publish a book; or offers to include short stories, poems or other literary or artistic material in an anthology and then invites those included in it to buy a copy of that anthology." 
(British Advertising Standards Authority Advice Note, Vanity Publishing, July 1997)

However, many such companies prefer to use other terms, which you may find misleading, such as:

• Joint venture publishing
• Co-Operative publishing
• Subsidy publishing
• Shared responsibility publishing
• (incorrectly) self-publishing