Notes from a family reunion: iPad, vanity publishing

I attended my grandmother’s 95th-birthday-party-cum-family-reunion over the weekend, and took the iPad with me. Consequently, I spent a lot of time demonstrating it to family members and friends, and explaining its features to the curious.

Just about everybody who saw me with the device wondered about it, and I would spend anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes demonstrating it. I have to admit, Steve Jobs is a marketing genius—after a few moments with a user who has one, these devices practically sell themselves.

I was also interested to find how pervasive self-publishing culture had become. My uncle Roger has already self-published a suspense novel via one of Amazon’s print-on-demand programs and is working on a second (and at some point I plan to interview him for TeleRead about the process and how successful his association with Amazon has been).

But one of my cousins (I’m not sure of the exact relationship, but it probably involves ordinals and times removed) has been writing fantasy novels that he wants to publish. He said he showed his first novel to someone highly-placed in the publishing industry, and this person said he liked the book but that my cousin would probably never end up getting it published because most fantasy publishers simply aren’t receptive to new authors right now.

My cousin has been looking into self-publishing it. He said one company (he forgot its name but it had been in business since the 1920s) had offered him a self-publishing deal for $5,000 which would include a number of printed copies and $1,000 spent on publicity, but he didn’t have the money at the time to take them up on it.

I suggested that he should look into less expensive alternatives, and companies that would take their fee out of copies sold rather than up front (and also suggested he place the novel on the Baen’s Bar slushpile forum for criticism and possible acceptance for publication). I only worry, in retrospect, that I was not emphatic enough about suggesting he avoid the lure of vanity presses. I would hate to think of one of my own family members getting scalped like that.