Vanity Publishing: The Hard Lesson I Learned.

I went for a run one day at the neighborhood park, and on my sweaty walk home, I saw a yard sale on the end of my street. I noticed this cool retro-looking bike with a super fancy seat and had to buy it. For 20 bucks, this bike was a steal! I paid the money and rode it home.

Later that night, the man at the yardsale knocked on my door. "I need that bike back," he said, wringing his hands in embarrassment. "My neighbor said I could add everything on the back wall of her garage to the yard sale. But that didn't mean the bike." I could feel his embarrassment. How terrible to find the person who bought something from your yard sale, and ask for it back! Personally, I couldn't do it. I would pay my neighbor to buy a new bike. But, he sucked up his pride and offered to pay me twice as much to get the bike back. Of course, I said the 20 bucks was perfectly fine because I'm not a monster and accidents happen. He was so grateful that I didn't make a big thing about it that he walked to his car and handed me a book and two Buckeyes. "This is my book that was published last year. And the buckeyes are just something that I give out with my books."

Interesting. There was another fellow author living on my street! The book wasn't anything too spectacular. It was the story of him growing up in Akron. He was newly retired and wanted to tell the tale of his life. It was cute, but not necessarily a page-turner. Which was surprising, because he said how he was on the Cleveland morning show to promote it, and did a book signing at the KeyBank up the street. It inspired me so much that I hurried up and finished the novel I was working on. If this retired dude could do it, so could I.

At the time, I didn't know much about self-publishing. So, I took my laptop (and his book) to the local coffee shop and started to shop for publishers. The inside cover of his book stated that he published it through Tate Publishing. I googled them, discovered they were a Christian publishing house, and moved on. They wouldn't want any part of my dystopic sci-fi with monsters and robots.

I found a few other publishing houses online and sent a handful of queries. Out of five, I got a nibble on one of the lines. For about 2 months, they would e-mail me and say I made it to the next round of cuts. And at the end of the line were the words "We are very interested in publishing your book."

I cried. I called my mom and told her. I called my husband at work and told him. I told all my friends. Then, I opened up my laptop to skim through the contract they sent over. It was like a dream. I was combing through a contract for my very first book.

And that's when I saw it. They wanted 8,000 dollars upfront for marketing and printing. I'll be honest- I considered it. I considered it for no other reason than to save myself the conversations with my friends and family that I got roped into a scam. I sent them back a not-so-nice email that I would be declining their offer. And that was the day I learned all about vanity publishing.

It's a horrible, horrible model. Publishing a book is a dream similar to landing on the moon. Most aspiring authors use the potential for landing a book deal to give them life. Vanity publishers rope you along for months, building up your hopes, and then smashing them to bits when they want you to foot the bill for marketing and printing.

Five years removed from that embarrassing and heart-crushing encounter, and I'm glad it happened. It made me skeptical of everyone. If there's a company or a person that wants to help you publish a book- they're in it for them. They know you'll do anything to get your book out there, and they use your hunger for monetary gains.

Vanity publishers offer you a five-course meal in the middle of the desert and don't admit they want your immortal soul until you pick up a fork.

So, at the end of the day, I took the self-publishing approach. And I check every so often at my bike neighbor's Amazon store to find Rubber City Ruins received more reviews than his book that went through a vanity publisher. It doesn't make me smug (because he was a nice guy who inspired me to finish and publish my book). But, it makes me sad. He paid so much money and was likely disappointed by the outcome. He stated in the last chapter of the book that he was planning to write another one. Yet, he's never published anything else.