I have just received an email from someone which causes me to write on this subject.
Here is what he writes:
“The disease of levying charges to authors (usually called euphemistically: ‘processing fee’, ‘page charges’ or something like that) has spread from book publishers to journal publishers as well today. The supposedly much-sought-after journals published by a commercial company PLoS (Public Library of Science) are slapping hefty charges (e.g., 3000 to 4000 USD) for publishing papers. To me this practice looks atrocious, and I see this practice as nothing but bribery. Others may look at this practice differently and that does not worry me. My perception is this and I stand by this.”
Here is another:
“Many naive people have fallen victims to such cheaters! My cousin’s husband living in Coimbatore wrote a book commenting on Bhagavad Gita and consulted me on publishing his work. I suggested a few reliable contacts in India. Somehow, he was attracted by an American publisher, who demanded $10,000/- down-cash payment for publishing his commentary. This happened nearly a decade ago and even today my brother-in-law has heard nothing from this American publisher and the money he paid is lost for ever! One may say that my brother-in-law should have verified the authenticity of this publisher before he paid the money. True, I agree. But to a person such as myself with long experience of international publishing, the publishing world has changed to the worse!”
I agree, and even feel sick that this writer’s cousin in India was not only cheated but cheated by a rich person (sadly, as in the case of many who are rich, probably the basis of their richness!).
Instead, if this Indian had at that time bought and kept shares in one of the largest international publishing companies, he would still have been getting money from his investment! However, your investment strategy is a matter between and your investment advisor – and it is not any part of my brief here to recommend that you follow any kind of investment strategy.
The fact is that, ever since greed re-commenced its hold on world culture (in my view, starting with the time of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan), not only publishing but the whole of the commercial world has been overtaken by such challenges.
Very sadly it is not only smallish companies such as that mentioned above which suck money in large gobs from simple people.
Most of the looting is done in small doses but at mass scale by large multinational companies which deliberately put in algorithms to waste the time of customers so that they profit from the interest they earn from the money received by them between the time an order is placed, and the ordered service or product is delivered. And then there are products that just don’t get delivered – and how much time is one going to waste on chasing those?
Anyway, in this challenging world, should you pay to have your work published?
The answer is that if your work is worth publishing, patience and persistence will surely find you a professional publisher who you *won’t* have to pay to publish your work – and will rather pay you royalties from the money received from the sale of your book.
The difference between a “professional publisher” and a “vanity printer” is precisely that the professional publisher invests its own money in your book, whereas a mere “vanity printer” charges you.
However, the world has become complicated by the emergence of “mixed models” where you are invited to “share” in the publishing costs.
Usually, these are just disguised ways of making “vanity publishing” sound acceptable and respectable.
I know there are genuine models of cost-sharing, where a writer makes a contribution to the cost of publication but then gets back a larger share of royalty. But these are rare because, in publishing, the profit margins are tiny anyway – and publishers lose money on most of the books they publish, surviving only because of a few best-sellers.
As a publisher, I don’t like that kind of “cost-sharing” because it dilutes editorial judgement and blurs the publisher’s control of the publishing process, but I accept that it is at least a moral way of proceeding, even if it is in my view not very professional.
So what is my conclusion?
You should happily pay a “publisher” (in reality, usually just a printer!):
- If your work is not very good but you are vain enough to want to see it in print
Or
- If you don’t have the time, the patience, and the persistence to place it with a professional publisher.
If these two caveats don’t apply to you, all I can say is: don’t throw away your money; rather please invest your time to continue looking patiently and persistently for a professional publisher.
P.S. Please note that I do discuss in another post the genuine option of self-publishing.