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The Evolution of the Publishing Industry –
the Impact of Vanity Publishing
Mikolaj KLIMCZAK
Wroclaw University of Economics and Business, Poland
mikolaj.klimczak@ue.wroc.pl
Abstract
Publishing industry has a long history, and its impact on human history is unprecedented. It has a
reputation of a stable and conservative industry. Recently, however, since the birth of the Internet and
the digital economy, the publishing industry has become vulnerable to considerable fluctuations.
Moreover, other phenomena take place, changing the shape for the whole industry. The purpose of the
paper is to present the emergence of the new phenomenon in the studied industry – vanity publishing
and present its economic significance. A vanity publisher is a company which would publish any book
in exchange for a payment from the author, and the procedure usually employs little or no selection.
The author of this paper will attempt to study this phenomenon for various stakeholders: vanity presses
(a company offering vanity publishing), authors of vanity publications, readers, commercial
(traditional) publishers and other authors (mainly from the same literary genre). The primary method
of analysis in this paper is a case study; the author supplemented it with direct interviews with experts
to assess problems emerging from the vanity publishing for various groups of industry’s stakeholders.
The main finding is that vanity publishing, becoming an increasingly popular phenomenon, leads to
the emergence of a new market within the publishing industry. Such a process, in turn, changes the
competitive constraints upon commercial publishers and might lead to some unexpected outcomes for
readers. Vanity publishing shifts significantly the balance of power within the publishing industry,
which leads to noteworthy changes for all stakeholders.
Keywords:
Publishing, Opportunism, Vanity, Competitive Constraint, Book
Introduction
The publishing industry has a long history. Its origins can be traced back to Gutenberg’s invention of
the movable (interchangeable) type around 1440. Over the second half of the 15th century, around 8
million books were published thanks to this invention, probably more than the scribes in Europe had
managed to rewrite since Constantinople was founded in 330 (Clapham, 1957, p. 377). Although the
above statement is challenging to be substantiated, and its author does not support it with evidence, E.
L. Eisenstein cites the example of the printing a translation of Plato’s “Dialogues” in 1483 by the Ripoli
Press. While the submission and publication cost three times more than hiring a scribe for this work,
the printer printed 1025 copies, and the scribe delivered one at the same time (Eisenstein, 1979, pp.
45–46).
Apart from its long history, the publishing industry is characterised by conservatism. It happens
primarily because of the specificity of the process and the fact that the whole procedure of publishing
a book has not changed significantly since the Renaissance. This process involves several activities in
which various actors may be required, intending to provide the reader with a publication. It consists of
creation (a creative process of writing a manuscript), acquisition (buying the rights to publish by a
publisher), editing (refining and improving a work), production (proofreading, designing and
typesetting), printing (or preparing for digital publication), advertising and distribution.
Moreover, the publishing industry in the 21st century is undergoing several significant changes related
to economic, social, and cultural developments. Firstly, computerisation, digitisation, and the
emergence of new media and equipment (computers, game consoles and mobile devices) have forced
the publishing industry to adapt to new substitutes, among others. Secondly, the development of the
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Internet posed both a threat and an opportunity for the industry. On the one hand, it can be treated in a
broad sense as a substitute as well as the mean of the distribution of substitutes. On the other hand, it
can be a new distribution channel or platform for the development of innovation. Thirdly, the places
where readers buy books are changing. The Internet distribution mentioned above has appeared, but
books are also distributed in supermarkets, press kiosks, as supplements to magazines or in huge chain
bookstores. Fourthly, many new and innovative substitutes have emerged. In a broad sense, any activity
aimed at spending free time, including cinema, television, radio, streaming services, video and mobile
games, or even sports or watching them, can be identified as a substitute. In a narrow sense, a printed
book could be substituted by its electronic or audio version (audiobook). However, since the content
of all three goods is the same, it must be assumed that they are simply various forms of the same product
distributed differently from an author to a reader.
It all means that the publishing industry might be caught up, entangled in innovations in other areas:
software and hardware related but also related to the situation of other leisure industries. Such
phenomena are well explored, and studies of such changes are well-grounded in various disciplines.
Within this broadly described environment, a relatively new phenomenon emerges. Vanity publishing
is a process which is performed by a vanity publisher (or vanity press), a company which publishes
books in exchange for payments from authors of publications. In the traditional process of publishing,
manuscripts undergo rigorous selection, the process which is generally absent in the vanity publishing
(Strauss, 2019).
There is no effortless way to estimate the scale of vanity publishing in comparison with the publishing
industry. However, to make the reader aware of the extent of this phenomenon, it can be pointed out
that one of the publishing houses offering “co-financing” in Poland publishes about 170 new books
each year in this model, and additionally 30, which are financed only by the publishing house
(Tenderenda-Ożóg and Waszczyk, 2017). Vanity publishing seems to have become an increasingly
popular phenomenon all over the world. To further substantiate the widespreadness of vanity
publishing, one can find a plethora of guides for debuting authors circulated in various media
(newspapers, Internet), which warn against this model of publishing. Moreover, librarians are also
voicing their strong concerns against vanity publishing, as they struggle to keep consistency and
integrity in their collections (Laquintano, 2013).
Scientists from various discipline supply scarce analysis of vanity publishing. The author of this
publication is not familiar with any scientific article referring to this subject and analysing it within
economic sciences. The purpose of the paper can be summarised in three goals which form the logical
sequence of research:
• to present vanity publishing and show its place within the publishing industry,
• to describe the plausible outcome for various groups of stakeholders,
• to show the consequences of this phenomenon in markets, industries, and the economy.
Modern Publishing Process
As it was said above, the publishing procedure can be divided into several subprocesses. The root of
the publishing lies in the creative process performed by the author, who invents and realises the concept
of a publication, creating the manuscript. Later comes commercialisation, it is the stage, where
publishers purchase the right to publish the work of an author. It might seem inconsequential; however,
publishing houses employ strict procedures of selection to ensure the quality and therefor sellability of
the book – very few submitted manuscripts get published. When the publisher acquires the script, the
editing starts. The most important task on this stage includes refining and improving the publication,
in the process of making it more legible and potentially interesting for readers. Then comes production,
which consists of proofreading, designing, and typesetting, among others, and printing. In the world,
where digital distribution is available, printing can be substituted by digital processing. The last part of
the publication process is as important as the others. To be able to talk about sales at all, advertising
and distribution must be adequately prepared.
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In general, the commercial publishing process may take three forms. The first one consists in preparing
a traditional printed version of the publication. The second one includes publishing in electronic
version: e-books, or audiobooks. The third one involves self-publishing, where the author takes over
all or part of the roles and responsibilities of the parties involved in the publication.
With vanity publications, a new, completely different model of book publishing has appeared in the
industry. In this model, the author hires a publishing house to publish his book. It differs from self-
publishing in that the author receives a part of the profits from the sale (if any). Moreover, the author
usually loses (by the power of the contract) her or his economic copyrights to the publisher. Besides
this, the flow of money is different, and the intentions of the vanity press are usually predatory.
Within the whole ecosystem of the publishing industry, the development of digital distribution is
beginning to play a leading role. This phenomenon is manifested firstly by the development of two new
book forms: e-books and audiobooks, and secondly by the emergence of new methods of publication
distribution. The diagram of the connections and individuals taking part in the publishing process is
presented in fig. 1.
Between the author and the readers, there are several entities whose aim is to enable the latter to
familiarise themselves with the work of the former. The most vital individuals involved in this process
can be distinguished: apart from authors and readers, these are publishers, distributors, and retailers.
However, there are several ways to configure this process depending on the choice of the author and
the scope of expertise of the companies involved in the publishing.
Fig. 1: Simplified procedures and entities involved in the publishing process
Source: own elaboration
The first and the most common way of publishing is when the author hands over the manuscript to the
publisher, and the latter, when the decision to acquire it is made, prepares its printed form (editing,
designing and ordering it from a printing house). The printed publication goes to a distributor
(wholesaler) who, through his contacts, places it at diverse types of retailers, where it is bought by
readers. There are two additional variants of this procedure. The first variant is when the publisher and
wholesaler are vertically integrated, which might simplify the process, cutting some of the transaction
costs and avoiding double marginalisation. The second variant is when the publisher tries to bypass the
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distributor and decides to place the publication in retail on its own. In fig. 1 this way of a publication
is marked with solid red lines with triangular arrowheads.
The second type of publication process relates to the preparation and selling the electronic version of
the manuscript, as either an e-book or audiobook. Here, the publisher usually distributes the publication
through hosting services which include various channels of reaching the readers. It can be done by
offering it via Internet bookstores or doing it directly from the hosting platform. The method of delivery
might also differ, it can either be a direct sale of the electronic file in multiple formats (EPUB, AZW,
PDF, MP3 or other) or provision of the digital version through streaming or paid subscription lending
services. In fig. 1 this way of a publication is marked with blue dashed lines with triangular arrowheads.
The third type of reaching the readers is through self-publishing. Here, the most crucial part is that the
author of the manuscript takes over the roles of various individuals in the first two, above mentioned
types, bypassing them and organising the components or the whole of the process as she or he pleases.
The author may replace the publisher, distributor, retailer or any combination of the three, as the
broadest form of self-publishing assumes that the author does not use any intermediaries, takes care of
the whole process himself and sells his work directly to readers. Here, a small exception is made for
the digital versions of a book, since the author will typically use a file hosting to a greater or lesser
extent. In fig. 1 this way of a publication is marked with yellow solid (for printed version) or dashed
(for digital version) lines with double arrowheads.
In addition to the three general types of production and distribution of publications mentioned above,
there is a fourth type, different from the others, which is the subject of this analysis: vanity publishing.
A “new” phenomenon in the publishing industry – vanity publishing
Very few authors supply a full and complex scientific analysis of vanity publishing. However, it should
be noted that vanity publishing has been noticed by many, including those who have issued warnings
against them. Among others, the Advertising Standards Authority, together with the Committee of
Advertising Practice in the United Kingdom, a non-governmental organisation with the task of self-
regulating the advertising industry, gives a very concise and straightforward definition of vanity press.
According to them, vanity publishing “is a service whereby authors are charged to have their work
published” (Committee of Advertising Practice, 2014, para. 1). ASA identifies vanity publishers as the
ones who “generally offer to publish a book for a specific fee or to include short stories, poems or other
literary or artistic material in an anthology, which the authors are then invited to buy” (Committee of
Advertising Practice, 2014, para. 1). They advise advertisers to be aware while providing advertising
to such companies, because, in broad terms, there might be “four areas where ads for vanity publishers
have the potential to run into trouble: merit; costs; financial gain; and marketing and promotion”
(Committee of Advertising Practice, 2014, para. 2).
Even though vanity publishing seems to be developing very dynamically recently, this phenomenon is
not as new as it may seem. It must be said that there is a thin line between vanity publishing and self-
publishing. In both ways of publishing, it is the author who decides to publish and bears the costs. The
difference lies in areas of control over the publishing process and intellectual property rights. In the
case of self-publishing, all copyrights remain with the author as well as the control over the publishing
process; in the vanity, the economic rights are transferred to the publisher, so in addition to the payment
from the author, he is entitled to some or all of the profits from sales – the author theoretically receives
production and distribution services. However, even pricing might not be under his or her control, let
alone the way the publication is distributed.
In the nineteenth century, self-financing was a relatively popular form of publishing one’ s literary and
scientific works. Many noted writers and poets either financed the publication from their funds or
collected donations or private scholarships. This way, some of their masterpieces were published by
Virginia Woolf, Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Jane Austen, George Bernard Shaw, Marcel Proust, Emily
Dickinson, Ezra Pound, Laurence Stern and Walt Whitman.
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Contemporary authors also choose self-publishing as a form of publication of their work. Such was the
case of E. L. James, the author of the erotic romance novel entitled “Fifty Shades of Grey”, who in
2011 published it in the form of e-book and the print-on-demand system, to later sign a contract with a
traditional publisher (Balson, 2013). The same thing happened with Andy Weir’s novel “The Martian”,
which was similarly published in 2011, to be re-released in 2014, already in a traditional publishing
house (Dickerson, 2015). Both novels have already been adapted as motion pictures.
It is easy to distinguish self-publishing from vanity publishing if the author assumes all responsibilities
in the former form of publication. It becomes significantly harder to it if one looks at the publication
from the perspective of time. We might not have enough data to find out how the nineteenth-century
book was financed, published and distributed.
Nowadays, the term “vanity publishing” is considered pejorative, and the name itself suggests that the
author of the manuscript publishes it out of vanity, self-admiration and against the opinions of others
who may think that the work will not achieve commercial success. Such an author may also not have
sufficient skills and knowledge to engage in self-publishing. Then a vanity publisher appears.
Commentators point out that such publishers use deception against often unaware writers. They may
pose as “traditional publishers”, but those who have a “lower acceptance threshold” and are open to
young and talented authors (Castillo, 2011; Lundin, 2009). Vanity publisher may use various
psychological techniques, aiming at awakening and further using conceit, egocentrism and
megalomania of its authors-clients (Clifford, 2014; Rue, 1994, pp. 151–152).
Based on the analysis of offers, vanity publisher provides de facto a slightly extended printing service
to ignorant authors. The service mentions editing and proofreading, which is very low in quality,
resulting in abysmal reviews of the publication. Usually, books published in this way are not adequately
prepared in terms of editing and content and do not undergo qualitative verification. Additionally, such
a publisher organises the dispatch of obligatory copies to libraries and indicates its marketing and
distribution potential. In the process, the importance of obtaining an ISBN is emphasised, in which of
course such a publisher can help. Thanks to this, the publisher retains control over the publication and
its possible reissues by strengthening power over the copyright of the work (Strauss, 2019). Very often,
when in contact with a prospective client, vanity publishers mention profit, however, it is very rarely
for authors choosing this form of publication to recoup their costs, let alone gain financially from book
sales (Committee of Advertising Practice, 2014). The fee that is paid by the author to the vanity press
already includes the profit for the publisher and any premium for the risk. However, it should be
stressed that this form of publication leaves the entire risk to the author by definition and the risk to the
publisher is minimal, since even the payment for the service is made in advance. Traditional publishers
behave like investors in the process: they offer to publish the acquired book in exchange for fees to the
author and part of the revenue. The rest of the sales revenue is used to recoup the money invested and
what is left is the publisher’s profit.
Stakeholders involved in the vanity publishing
It is necessary to identify the main stakeholders in this process, their possible actions in this context
and the likely consequences of this process on them to give a full picture of how vanity publishing can
affect the publishing industry. There are six essential groups of stakeholders: vanity publishers
themselves, authors of vanity publications, readers of books in general, commercial publishers,
distributors and retailers and other authors not using vanity publishing. The following analysis was
carried out based on the author’s direct interviews with industry professionals, discussions on literature
held on various sites and in groups in social media, and the study of comments and reviews on popular
literature websites.
Vanity Publishers
As it was mentioned above, the term “vanity publisher” is pejorative. For this reason, publishers of this
type use different terms for what they do: subsidy publishing, joint-venture publishing, co-operative
publishing, shared responsibility publishing, (incorrectly) self-publishing, publishing with co-financing
or even pose as traditional publishers. They use various psychological techniques to increase the conceit
and false self-appreciation for the manuscript. At the same time, they demonstrate an interest in the
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publication of the work, pointing to its (unsupported) potential for commercial success, promising
quality and professional help. In reality, what they offer is a slightly extended printing service (Clifford,
2014).
Interestingly, the vanity publishing for the untrained eye looks similar to traditional publishing.
However, looking at it closely, significant differences begin to emerge. Firstly, the cost of publishing
in the vanity model exceeds the actual cost of publishing the book. As mentioned above, the fee (which
is absent in traditional publishing) already includes the publisher’s profit, and given the poor quality of
service, an author can get much more for the same money (Kasperek, 2016; Zwierzchowski, 2015). All
of this together might result in higher than average prices of vanity books.
Secondly, the vanity press is not interested in selling the books it publishes, as it earns money from
fees of authors (hence the overpricing). Sometimes it merely sends the whole circulation to the author
(at his expense). The interest of the vanity publisher is simple: to maximise the profit by increasing the
number of published books. In this situation, it is not a matter of quality, but quantity. Vanity publishers
benefit from increasing (or constant) returns to scale, and the quality of the publication is irrelevant –
the more books titles they publish, the higher the profit. Traditional publishers are interested in books
of high commercial potential – the more copies of one particular book they sell, the higher the profit,
where the number of sold copies is a function of, among others, quality. Improvement of quality
requires additional cost spent on editing, which will diminish profits of a vanity publisher and possibly
increase the profits of a commercial publisher. Books published by the vanity press are often ridiculed
because of the number of linguistic, factual or logical errors that appear in them. The quality of the idea
itself might also be subpar, which may indicate the reason for the author’s failure to publish through a
commercial publisher (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015). If by some chance, the book will sell,
revenue from the sales will increase already elevated profit of the publisher. The activities of vanity
publishers are practically risk-free. All costs are covered by an author, and a publisher does not invest
significant amounts of money in this process.
Concurrently, such publishers aggressively promote their activities through various channels, also
using the Internet and social media - mainly due to the possibility of better reaching the target group
and lower costs of such activities. For example, they organise competitions in which the main prize is
the publication. Hundreds of participants can enter such a competition, the best of whom will be able
to cover the costs (sometimes not even the whole) of the publication. The rest will receive a
“consolation prize” in the form of the possibility of publishing the work in return for a fee. Vanity
publishers also promote books by maintaining a “book blog culture”, where people who are usually
young, inexperienced, incompetent and not familiar with literature and publishing industry receive
copies of books for review from the publisher (at the expense of the author, of course). The quality of
reviews leaves a lot to be desired; often, bloggers feel honoured and “repay” with good appraisals.
The appearance of such publications is a consequence of opportunism on the part of publishers and the
asymmetry of information to the detriment of authors, which results in moral hazard, both in the aspect
of hidden activities (in the form of refraining from acting - e.g. marketing actions) and hidden
information (e.g. the real value of the published “work”).
Authors of vanity publications
Publishing books with self-financing by vanity press also has some consequences for authors. Such
authors are perceived as talentless hacks. Due to the sub-par quality of the process, published books
are often ridiculed. Initially, the vanity presses pose as publishers who provide the realisation of dreams
and quick satisfaction of needs. After some time, when a book published in this way is not widely
distributed, and the sales are usually minimal (if any), there comes a reality check. An author will
experience the effect of “pulling the rug from under his feet”, it might be a disappointment, and this
situation could build frustration with failure (Crump, 2010).
Because of these relationships, publishing a vanity publication is unprofitable and seldom brings profits
to the authors. Moreover, it also seems to be the most expensive method of publishing work, and the
works published in this way are usually of inadequate quality.
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Some also point out that the author who used vanity publishing in the past has a significantly reduced
chance of publishing traditionally in the future. It creates the effect of being “locked-in-vanity”, where
no traditional publisher is interested in the author’s work, and what is left is another vanity publication.
What can happen is also the situation, when an author, often unconsciously, does not try to publish in
a traditional publishing house. Vanity publishers maintain good PR campaigns where they try to
discredit traditional publishers, by presenting them as conservative, closed to innovations, blocking the
access to young and fresh authors. It is quite frequently possible to read in the internet discussions
statements like: “do not even bother sending your work to a traditional publisher, they are not accepting
new authors, your only choice is Publisher XYZ”. Vanity publishers tend to maintain friendly and
frequent contacts with prospective authors. In the experiment conducted by Pawel Pollak, where he
sent a sample of the specially prepared very poor quality manuscript to several vanity publishers, the
fastest acceptance letter came after two hours (Zwierzchowski, 2015).
Readers
There are also some consequences for readers. Firstly, books published in this way may not be available
in broad distribution. Thus the readers might have difficulty purchasing it, even if they wanted to.
Secondly, it is difficult to distinguish a vanity publication from commercial one (either self or
traditional). There is a higher probability that the former is potential “lemon” as compared with the
latter being potentially a “peach”, subject to a rigorous selection and intensive work of editors. Thirdly,
encountering a sub-par vanity publication (sometimes by accident or by a recommendation of vanity
publisher’s “befriended” reviewer) may cause discouragement to literature.
Each of these effects hurts the condition of the industry and the readership level (Doonan, 2017).
Through selection, publishers provide literature that meets specific minimum quality criteria. The
activities of vanity publishers can cause a drop in trust in literature and other long-term effects, e.g. in
literacy level.
Commercial publishers
It is also possible to show some potentially significant outcomes of vanity publishing on commercial
publishers. Firstly, vanity publishers are new, strong competitors in the industry whose actions
influence the mark-up. They use a different revenue model, which is, due to the asymmetry of
information, quite successful for them. Traditional publishers maintain some quality criteria, which
makes the whole process more exclusive and less accessible to new authors (Strauss, 2019). Secondly,
by decreasing the demand for literature due to a large amount of low-quality publication, traditional
publications will also lose out. Thirdly, there may be an adverse selection phenomenon present, where
low-quality literature will crowd out higher-quality literature. Due to the information asymmetry and
the inability to assess the quality of work before consumption, writing books might gradually become
less profitable, when a talented author could be overwhelmed by the vanity authors and resign from
writing. It will, of course, only occur if the vanity publications appear in the distribution, which
unfortunately happens.
Distributors and retailers
Similarly to the traditional publishers, also distributors and retailers might see some adverse effects on
their financial result. In the presence of vanity publishing, they might be forced to use additional
selection methods to maintain the consistency and integrity of the assortment they sell. Also, the
number of low-quality books being distributed might reduce sales revenue, as buyers, disillusioned by
the quality of the literature, would turn to different methods of spending their free time.
Other authors of non-vanity publications
This group of stakeholders might also be influenced significantly by the vanity publishing. One of the
problems, which was already mentioned, is a thin line between vanity and self-publishing. As a result,
self-publishing can be identified with vanity. Through the actions of the vanity publishers, the whole
of self-publishing can be seen as an inferior way of publishing. The growing bad reputation of vanity
publishing might pull self-publishing down. There is an increasing opinion that all books published by
authors on their own are of inferior quality to those published traditionally (Strauss, 2019). As it is also
hard to distinguish beforehand which publishers use the vanity publishing model and which are
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traditional ones, there might be a decline in interest in literature (in general) or specific genres (in
detail).
Moreover, young authors, through increased pressure on traditional publishers, will have even greater
difficulty with their debut in the traditional model. The effect of reinforcement (snowball effect) may
start to appear in the whole industry, as such young authors would be pushed in the hands of vanity
publishers.
Vanity Publishing as a Market
J. D. Macdonald, who warns against vanity publishers in his educational campaign, coined a rule:
“money should always flow toward the author” (Nielsen Hayden, 2003). In the case of vanity
publishing is the opposite – “publisher” is being paid by the author, instead of the author being paid by
the publisher. D. Bricker compares it with the situation of “paying someone to take a vacation for you
so you can get more work done” (Bricker, 2013).
In the traditional multi-staged
1
market for non-scientific literature, regardless of the form in which the
publication is provided, the good that is supplied is, simplifying, a book. In such market authors create
the supply, it is the author who ensures the stream of manuscripts for which the demand in the
production chain is created successively by publishers, distributors, retailers and finally readers.
Therefore, the good, book, reaches the buyer through a series of intermediaries which produce and
distribute it. The self-publishing model is analogous to the traditional model, so it should be included
together in the same market. The author is simply a publisher here.
In the case of vanity publishing, the situation is different. What is being sold is a service of preparing
the publication, ordered by an author, who creates demand and is offered by a publisher, which creates
supply. The money equivalent for the service is transferred in the traditional direction, from buyer to
supplier, so there is nothing special about this relationship in terms of the trade relations.
Due to the reversed flow of money as compared with the traditional publishing process, it has to be
assumed, that vanity publishing (treated as a service provided to an author) and traditional publishing
(treated as a process of book production) do not belong to the same market. Even though the same
publisher can engage in both, we have to presume that with the vanity presses (and imprints) a new
market is beginning to emerge within the publishing industry, where the service of publishing a book
is a product. Vanity publishing is simply a new revenue model for a publisher. The company engages
in similar activities in the same industry; however, the way the revenue is generated is different.
Concluding Remarks
The intensification of vanity publishing, judged by the increasing number of publishers which engage
in such activities have created the motivation for more in-depth study.
The development of vanity publishing has been overlapped by the development of modern media,
which seems to intensify this phenomenon. In this process, authors create demand for the service of
book publishing, and publishers provide such a service. Such interaction is a reversal of the traditional
publishing process, in which a publisher invests in the work of an author, which is rewarded by him.
Usually, in vanity publishing, only the publisher benefits, because his profit is already included in the
fee paid by the author. On the other hand, there are potentially many negative consequences for other
stakeholders in the process. The authors of the vanity feel a painful clash with reality when they
understand that they have fallen victim to the scam and will not get their money back. Readers may be
deterred from literature by the inability to distinguish between vanity and commercial publications.
Commercial publishers must face falling demand and adverse selection among authors. Distributors
are losing sales volume. Other authors, with falling demand, may see their revenue fall and the
increased difficulty of traditional publishing. All this allows vanity publishing to be assessed as a
detrimental practice in the publishing industry.
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Endnotes
1.
Such market consists of at least three stages: production, wholesale and retail. Depending on the
scope of the analysis, it might be suitable to delineate market differently, e.g. studying the market
for retail distribution of non-scientific literature, if we are interested in how bookstores operate.
Here, because the whole process is in the scope of the analysis, it is not necessary to make such
distinctions.
Acknowledgements
The project is financed by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland under the
programme “Regional Initiative of Excellence” 2019 - 2022 project number 015/RID/2018/19 total
funding amount 10 721 040,00 PLN
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