I’m not sure I understand you here. Can you clarify?

Going by what I think you’re saying… Ostensibly the licensee has a big reason to pay for the license: they want to make money off the licensor’s work. (Argh. I don’t see any particular reason to use licensor/licensee instead of author/publisher — copyright law has worked on the license/rights model for generations now, so why don’t we just stick with the more familiar terms?) This, of course, assumes that the author’s work is of sufficient value-to-the-public (note I’m not saying quality here) that the publisher can make money off it. This is the whole principle of “publishing”: offering that work publicly. The assumption underlying this whole model is that the public actually wants to see it.

The problem comes in when the public doesn’t want to see the work — whether because the author is unknown and the public just doesn’t know the work exists, or because the work isn’t good, or whatever. A true publisher will assess the work to determine why the public doesn’t want to see it, and whether demand can be created. If yes, the publisher invests what’s needed into creating that demand — marketing, editing, good cover art, whatever. This is the case whether we’re talking about a self-publisher or a corporate publisher, small press or large press. Again, the assumption is that the public wants it, or can be induced to want it, so the publisher becomes a partner with the author in trying to create and fulfill this demand.

What these vanity presses are doing is working on a different assumption: that the public doesn’t want it. And they’re not willing to do what it takes — not just marketing and editing, but building a reputation, which is equally important to consumer confidence — to encourage the public’s interest. So what they’re doing isn’t really publishing, i.e. offering to the public. They might put something out there, but that’s to satisfy the author. Now, where this assumption matches the author’s expectation, no problem. This is why Lulu isn’t a problem to me — anyone who uses it knows what they’re getting into, and they aren’t offered pie-in-the-sky promises. Nobody gets duped — not the author, not the public.

But when either the author or the public are taken advantage of, that’s not really publishing, not in spirit. IMO this applies equally to big publishers and small presses: if you’ve got to lie (or deceive) to sell your work, then your work’s not good enough to stand on its own. I’m just as offended when I see authors — self-published or otherwise — claiming to have won awards that they didn’t, or plagiarizing others’ work, as I am when I see publishers — self, small-press, or big — claiming a reputation they haven’t earned, or claiming to “publish” when they’re really just ripping the author off. The bottom line is that the work is not being offered to the public in good faith.

And when small small presses may be running at about the same level as a self-publishing operation, the only difference is who’s doing the branding and who’s risking the money.

But this is a crucial difference in the mind of the consumer. If an author’s work is good enough to convince someone else to invest in it financially, that goes a long way toward encouraging the public to buy. If only the author is willing to invest… well, authors have to believe in themselves, to function. But that doesn’t mean they’re any good.

Granted, neither does getting an investor. You’re right in that publishers aren’t arbiters of taste. Publishers have never been arbiters of taste; what they are is arbiters of what the public wants. What the public wants is often tasteless. But even the most tasteless published book is out there because someone, either the author or some other folks, thought it might be what the public wanted, and was willing to bet money on that chance.

What’s really the difference between paying to print a novel and paying to print a chapbook and not paying at all and simply posting the words on my blog or reading it out loud and syndicating the audio files?

There is no difference. You’re still paying for the medium, with everything you’ve described above. Blog-owners generally pay for their blogs in some way, whether it’s with ads slapped onto their free LiveJournal or actual money sent to an ISP or whatever. Podcasting requires a substantial investment in equipment: a computer, a good microphone, editing software. And in either case the author has to pay in time and energy to build up the blog or podcast’s reputation — which means publishing other stuff of sufficient quality to attract an audience — or nobody will see/listen to it. All of this is a massive investment, when you get right down to it. A very risky one.

Which is why the best “selling” (in terms of audience) blogs/podcasts/etc. still have outside backers — advertisers, a big media corp paying the blogger(s) so they post frequently, etc. Having investors means the creator has more time to spend on creating, not arguing with advertisers about banner sizing and why they haven’t paid their bill yet, etc. In theory, this helps the creator create a better product.

Having thought things over on the car ride home, I think I’ve messed up some terms too. So let me try again (mostly for my own benefit, I’m working things out here, if you’ll permit).

I have an issue with the way you (and the SFWA, and many others in the discussion, and Yog’s Law) use “author.” It incorporates the trade-publishing worldview as a given. And in a world where every author can be (and in some cases should be) a self-publisher, it invalidates a lot of authors.

Case in point: I have a friend who was regularly publishing fiction on the internet and making money under a donation model, but who constantly felt that the work was of less value because they weren’t being published. The fact that they were often making a bit more than they’d get selling to a magazine did not ease their mind.

Anyway, replacing “author” with “licensor” turns Yog’s law into a truism of contracts. The licensee has to pay for the license because otherwise they have no incentive to do anything with the license. Which is precisely what happens with a predatory vanity press. But that’s why discussions that turn on vanity press/self-publishing/print on demand being inherently inferior to licensing arrangements bug me. The problem isn’t that the author is assuming the risk, the problem is that certain companies are persuading authors to make bad business decisions, trading on some combination of naivety, idealism, and earned trust. Harlequin earned readers’ trust, and now they’re using it to sell a bad product.

What I have a problem with are small presses that aren’t actually small presses, because they only publish the owner’s work, or that of the owner’s friends. (Maybe this is what we need a word for… I’ve been calling it a vanity press up to this point, but clearly that’s an incorrect use of terms.) That’s a self-publishing operation trying to raise its status/disguise itself by calling itself a “small press”. It’s deceptive, which brings us back to the problem of bad ethics/exploitation. I agree with you; there’s nothing wrong with self-publishing in and of itself, and there are a lot of good reasons why some authors would do so. But I think they should be open about what they’re doing, for the readers’ sake as well as their own.

Look, maybe it’s because I hang out with these RPG people. It’s a different market, and a different system. Even on the big trade-publishing scale, a publisher like Wizards of the Coast is just going to print variations on their own game. So if you set up your own press as the shell business to help you put your work onto paper, that’s just what you do. They don’t win industry awards because readers have been fooled into thinking they’re better than they are because they have a small press label on them. They win because they are good.

Being able to license your intellectual property to an outside company means that it’s more marketable, but that may or may not translate into aesthetic worthiness. And when small small presses may be running at about the same level as a self-publishing operation, the only difference is who’s doing the branding and who’s risking the money.

(As you can probably tell, I don’t buy the idea of publishers at any level being accurate arbiters of taste. I don’t know why book producers are given so much more credence over movie and music producers, or why independent publishers are looked down on in a way that independent filmmakers or garage bands aren’t.)

And it seems like it’s just a short slip from there to webscabs and technopeasants. What’s really the difference between paying to print a novel and paying to print a chapbook and not paying at all and simply posting the words on my blog or reading it out loud and syndicating the audio files?

But going back to HH, they’re hawking publishing products designed for markets in the thousands to people who are looking at a market in the hundreds, if they’re lucky. And that’s what’s dishonest: specifically trading in the trust their readers place in them as publishers to give bad advice about publishing so that they can profit.

I’m not sure how/if it matters whether work is self-published in print or electronic form. The same issues apply re copyright (e.g., first publication rights) whether the book is published in paper form, as a CD, a podcast, whatever. But since I’ve already revealed my ignorance in one area of this debate, let me ask this: why do you feel there should be a different term for self-print-publishing, as opposed to any other kind of self-publishing? I’m not getting your point here.

And note that I said nothing about/against small presses. I have no problem with small presses that publish multiple works by multiple authors, choosing those works on the basis of quality/content (not whether they’re friends with the owner), and using contracts/business plans designed to make money primarily off the work — not the author or prospective authors e.g. the slushpile.

What I have a problem with are small presses that aren’t actually small presses, because they only publish the owner’s work, or that of the owner’s friends. (Maybe this is what we need a word for… I’ve been calling it a vanity press up to this point, but clearly that’s an incorrect use of terms.) That’s a self-publishing operation trying to raise its status/disguise itself by calling itself a “small press”. It’s deceptive, which brings us back to the problem of bad ethics/exploitation. I agree with you; there’s nothing wrong with self-publishing in and of itself, and there are a lot of good reasons why some authors would do so. But I think they should be open about what they’re doing, for the readers’ sake as well as their own.

And I define “success” in terms of the author, not surprisingly. Does the author make money, both short-term and long-term? The amount of money doesn’t matter (though I know some publishers might disagree); what matters is that the author took money in, didn’t just pay it out.

I know a lot of people who self-print-publish (usually in conjunction with self-electronic-publishing) and make money. Not big money, but money. Enough to cover costs and turn their hobby (most of them are role-playing-game designers) into a some spare scratch. Selling 100 copies of of a thing isn’t anything to be ashamed of, as long as you didn’t think you were going to sell 100,000.

And the real predatory presses slyly encourage that bad business sense even as they market themselves to inexperienced businessespeople. And Harlequin in particular is using its brand to do it. Forget about how any future books will affect the brand, this is affecting the brand.

And OK, I stand corrected on the notion that it doesn’t matter whether HQ is opening a self-publishing or vanity arm (upthread). It’s clear the vanity element is an altogether different and more predatory thing. Though I still don’t think an established traditional publisher should even be doing self-publishing, not under its publisher name — not to publish and not to promote itself to prospective authors. Still dilutes (really, destroys) the brand.

Loads of people do the pseudo-self-publishing thing as promoted by all those nasty vanity presses: they generally end up selling fewer than 100 copies of their books (and yes, I’m being generous here), and being very disappointed about the whole thing. But a few people DO still self-publish properly, and a few of those writers reap huge rewards: the most recent one I’ve heard of is called (I think!) Brunonia Brown. If my memory serves me right she spent upwards of $100,000 publishing her book and has now been picked up by a major publisher.

Thanks for the clarification. I’m wondering, though — does anyone do true self-publishing anymore, in this day and age of a-la-carte services and package deals readily available online with companies like Xlibris? It seems to me that the kind of self-publishing you’re describing would’ve existed pre-internet, but the process has updated as technology has updated, and there’s really no reason for any writer to fret over paper quality and ISBN registration themselves if they can just pay a company to do it for them. I’m not even sure the author could do it themselves more cheaply, unless they’re already knowledgeable about the business — printing a small quantity is usually more expensive than the large amounts of materials, etc., that a big company might buy. Or the PoD equipment they might have in-house.

I’m still not sure why the distinction matters. Either way, the writer is paying — a lot — to get published. And either way, the publisher is just publishing whoever comes along, with no vetting. Those are the salient points to me, not whether the author gets A Pittance or Half A Pittance when all’s said and done.

But I’ll keep this distinction in mind, and try to use the correct terms from here forth.