Vanity Publishing: Difference between revisions

* ''[[The Fairy Chronicles]]'' was originally vanity published by PublishAmerica, but its author was able to promote it well enough that a legitimate publisher picked it up and gave it much better treatment, adding vibrant color illustrations, a beautiful cover, and many overall improvements. The fact that the books are decently written helped, but the author's own ability to actually market her (originally overpriced) work is probably what pushed it into the mainstream.

** In the same mold (vanity published book gets picked up by conventional publisher and it achieves mainstream success): James Redfield's ''The Celestine Prophecy''. Redfield sold over 100,000 copies of the book out of the trunk of his car before Warner Books picked it up. The rest, as they say, is history.

* The aforementioned PublishAmerica claims to be a "traditional publisher". In response to a comment on the company's website denigrating science fiction and fantasy authors, [[wikipedia:Atlanta Nights|a group of these authors put together]] ''[[Atlanta Nights]]'', an [[Stylistic Suck|intentionally low-quality]] manuscript under the name [[Punny Name|Travis Tea]]. The "novel" was accepted by PublishAmerica (which purports to have high standards and to reject the majority of submissions), despite the fact that it contained numerous deliberate plot holes and inconsistencies, a missing chapter, a duplicate chapter, a chapter written by a [[Artificial Stupidity|computer text-generating program]], and other flaws that should have rendered it unpublishable on its face (at least, by any "traditional publisher"). After the hoax was revealed, the acceptance was swiftly withdrawn.

* Arguably some of the worse prose of all time goes to ''The Shadow Mouse of Everjade''. If you look it up on Amazon and read an excerpt, you will get some idea of the quality.