Vanity Publishing has long been sneered at, derided and portrayed as something for those that want to be published but haven't the talent.
An author pays a publisher to publish, market and promote their book and in return gets their (sometimes) life's work in print.
It's not a bad thing. If you write a book, it can take years to think up the story, work it, write it down, jig it about, making characters believable, likeable (or hate-able) editing, proofing, making it worth someone's time to read it all the way through. To then be dropped in a drawer and forgotten is a shame of the highest magnitude.
If you bought an old car, worked on getting it back on the road, in showroom condition, perfect, painted and polished, wouldn't you want to drive it out on the road, take it to custom shows and generally show it off? Of course you would, and you'd pay for that privilege too!
That's what a lot of authors do when their book is rejected by the main publishing houses. Rather than giving up and dropping it into the abyss (I mean drawer), they self-publish.
The trouble is, self-publishing is quite complex and difficult and therefore, why not pay an expert to do all that for you? After all, you wouldn't dash off down to the DIY store and buy a can of paint for your classic, newly-restored car. Why wouldn't you put your new novel, your three years hard toil into the hands of the professionals?
That's what some Vanity Publishing companies count on. Some go a little farther than that and actually claim to be Traditional Publishers, preying on the vanity of the author, you see.
Tate Publishing and Enterprises LLC were right at the top of their game, bringing in clients with alleged falsehoods. Claiming to be 'Trad Pub' - traditional publishing - and claiming the fees, upwards of $3,990 in cases, were not for the service of publishing a novel, but were for the services of a publicist.
Add to that, the thousands of dollars charged for video trailers, custom websites etc and you're looking at a pretty big score.
It seems that the mighty have fallen.
http://accrispin.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/trouble-at-tate-could-it-be-end-of-days.html
I wonder how long it will be before they rise from the ashes and carry on like nothing ever happened? Brushing the hopes and dreams of the authors they cheated, swindled and lied to under the rug, changing names, perhaps even changing offices and staff, only to do the same to the next group of hopeful authors.
Don't get caught out, always do your research. If a company looks too good to be true, it probably is. Check Writer Beware and other sites. Hell, you can even type into Google 'Name of the publishing company scam' and it will show up, somewhere.
