In the film industry, they have the Sundance Film Festival, a showcase for independent film-makers. At one time, the big Hollywood studios made everything, owned everything– including the actors and actresses. In recent years, as technology has changed (especially with the advent of relatively inexpensive digital video) there’s been an explosion in the number and quality of films made outside the studio system. Films that don’t require big budgets and big stars. Films that will make money with a limited theater release and moderate sales on DVD.

The funny thing is, in the world of film, such projects have a certain distinction or prestige. They’re considered to be art of a higher caliber than the major-studio produced movies.
So why isn’t that the case in the world of publishing? It’s no doubt because it’s believed that if the creator hasn’t run the gauntlet of the conventional publishing process, the work itself must have been rejected as unworthy of a publisher’s time and money. But just as the major studios can afford big special effects and expensive set designs, but can’t afford to take a risk on an unknown director, so the major publishers can afford large print runs and graphic design departments but can’t afford to take a risk reading an unsolicited manuscript. It’s all in the numbers.

So, in the past, writers were left to bury themselves and their creativity under a mountain of rejection letters or to self-publish. Though that latter path has worked out well for some authors (among them some of the most impressive novelists of the last two centuries, including the Brontë sisters, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce), many had only the option of going to a vanity press.

The vanity press, just like a conventional publisher, is in business to make a profit, so what’s the difference? Well, a vanity press tries to get as much money from the author as it can, does the minimum amount of service toward the book, and often keeps the rights or binds the author with tight restrictions. One of the main differences though, is that a vanity press is not selective. If a writer can pay the fee, that’s all that’s required.

It’s this lack of selectiveness combined with the failure to provide services beyond printing on the part of vanity presses that have given self-publishing such a bad reputation.

There is a way out of this dilemma though. It means taking the advantages of self-publishing with its freedom and independence, its ability to cater to potentially smaller markets, its profits-to-the-writer business model, and marrying it to the selectiveness, commitment to service, and standards of quality of the conventional publisher. There would only be one element missing–is Robert Redford busy?