Author

===Vanity publishing===
{{Main|Vanity press}}

Vanity publishers normally charge a flat fee for arranging publication, offer a platform for selling, and then take a percentage of the sale of every copy of a book.<ref name="Definition of VANITY PRESS">{{Cite web |title=Definition of VANITY PRESS |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vanity+press |access-date=2023-03-10 |website=www.merriam-webster.com |language=en}}</ref> The author receives the rest of the money made.<ref name="Definition of VANITY PRESS"/> Most materials published this way are for niche groups and not for large audiences.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |title=VANITY/SUBSIDY PUBLISHERS |url=https://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/vanity/ |access-date=2023-03-10 |website=SFWA |language=en-US}}</ref>

Vanity publishing, or subsidy publishing,<ref name=":2" /> is stigmatized in the professional world. In 1983, [[Bill Henderson (publisher)|Bill Henderson]] defined vanity publishers as people who would "publish anything for which an author will pay, usually at a loss for the author and a nice profit for the publisher."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Henderson |first=Bill |date=January 1984 |title=The Small Book Press: A Cultural Essential |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/601438 |journal=The Library Quarterly |volume=54 |issue=1 |pages=61–71 |doi=10.1086/601438 |s2cid=145283473 |issn=0024-2519}}</ref> In subsidy publishing, the book sales are not the publishers' main source of income, but instead the fees that the authors are charged to initially produce the book are. Because of this, the vanity publishers need not invest in making books marketable as much as other publishers need to.<ref name=":2" /> This leads to low quality books being introduced to the market.