Subsidy/vanity: a reader's definition

 From my point of view as a reader, the issue _seems_ simple: who  
vouches for a book by putting their money at risk to publish it?

If it is the author and nobody but the author, then it is a vanity  
(or "subsidy") publication. If there is someone else who is risking  
tens, hundreds, or millions of dollars on it... then it is a "real"  
book and a "real" publisher.

Why would I care? Well, the picture is simpler if we think of the  
literary mainstream a few decades ago, when book publishing was  
expensive, and, although lucrative, not a megabusiness. Publishers  
had some interest in books and literature or they would have gone  
into some other business. And you had a situation where the New York  
Times would probably at least have someone look at any book sent to  
them by your Knopfs and your Scribners and your Vikings.

The process meant that your ordinary run-of-the-mill book had been  
vetted by someone. And you had the naïve but not quite unfounded  
opinion by much of the public that "it must be true because I read it  
in a book."

This is certainly not to say that every book from a major publisher  
was truthful or valuable. There has always been money to be made in  
books of pseudoscience or scandal-mongering or trashy fiction. And  
publishers certainly might be arbitrary or biassed in their selections.

However, this is very different from the self-published book on  
calendar reform or squaring the circle or personal memoirs of someone  
whose life was fascinating to themselves.

The nature of the publisher is certainly not a sure guide to quality,  
but as a reader I certainly have an interest in knowing who staked  
their money on a book.


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