vanity press

Noun

vanity press (plural vanity presses)

1. (derogatory) A book publisher that lets the author pay the expenses of publishing up front, leaving the risk of financial failure with the author.
   • In 1956, having had her book turned down by commercial presses who were unwilling to publish a work on lesbian literature, Foster spent $2000, her year's salary, to print the book through a vanity press, Vantage.1981 August 22, Maida Tilchen, “Jeannette Howard Foster Dies”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 6, page 3
   • The self-published book is the joke of the literary world: whether one goes to a printer and has the books made up with one's own imprint, or goes to an "author-subsidized" publisher known in the trade as a "vanity press," doesn't matter: It's easy to tell a real book from the pretenders. […] It's...1990 November 12, Jerry Pournelle, “The Vanity Press is Much Harder to Spot on 3½-inch Disks”, in InfoWorld, volume 12, number 46, San Mateo, Calif.: InfoWorld Publishing Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, page...

   Synonyms:

   subsidy publisher, vanity publisher