avoiding writing scams

The autumn scam avoidance series continues today with a look at subsidy publishing. Not all subsidy publishing is a scam–but in today’s publishing world, “vanity press”-style subsidy publishing is a terrible deal for the author. Legitimate self-publishing options have eliminated authors’ need to pay exorbitant fees to see their work in published formats. There’s no longer any need to pay a vanity press unreasonable fees to publish (or market) your work–so don’t do it. Let’s look at some tips for identifying (and avoiding) “vanity presses” and unreasonable subsidy publishing deals. 1. Legitimate presses almost never approach an author directly. Yes, exceptions do exist, but a publisher approaching