By Alwyn Thomas, commercial specialist at Harding Evans Solicitors

You will understandably get excited if approached by a publisher concerning a book, short story or poem which you have written. The publishing deal of your dreams is around the next corner.....or is it? In this article I will briefly examine the types of publishing deals available and focus on the phenomenon of “vanity” publishing.

Firstly a conventional publishing deal is where a publishing company has reviewed your work and feels that it has commercial value i.e. they can sell it and make a profit. The company will pay the costs of producing the book and you will be paid a royalty being a percentage of the sale proceeds.

There is also self publishing which is where you do all of the work yourself e.g. cover design, type-setting, marketing, etc.

Vanity publishing involves a company charging you to publish your work. Costs of cover design, type-setting, etc. are then borne by you. A vanity publisher will usually publish any manuscript without considering the merits or commercial value of the material provided that you agree to pay the publishing and marketing costs. Therefore the risk of financial loss to the publisher is minimal. The publishers are, in effect, making a profit from you as opposed to through sales of the book and there may well be little incentive for them to actively and energetically promote the book.

Vanity publishers often appear like conventional publishers, offering royalty payments from sales and sending copies of the book to libraries etc. However, having made a profit from you already, you may well find that the marketing efforts of the vanity publisher are limited. Poor or limited marketing will result in poor sales. Poor sales will result in no royalty payments being due to you. It is as simple as that.

Any sort of publishing should raise your profile but vanity publishing by itself is unlikely to make you rich. You may be left with a large hole in your pocket and six copies of your latest “best seller” to give out as presents to your family and friends next Christmas!

Any publishing contract you may be offered will benefit from legal scrutiny by a specialist solicitor. The potential shortcomings of the proposed publishing deal can then be highlighted for you to decide whether to proceed or not.