forgettableme

Ask again in ten years when printing organs is more of a reality.

That's a rather large assumption.

I'm on food stamps. I spend about $5 a month on treats for my children. Maybe a fruit flan, or some ingredients to make cakes. Very, VERY, rarely I buy root beer and ice cream for floats.

I use food stamps to go to the grocery story once a month and stock up on useful things. Dry goods, baking goods, canned goods, etc. Healthy things to feed three kids and myself.

So, yes, there are some people on food stamps using them to buy soda.... but with so many people on food stamps I doubt the majority are using them all on junk food. Most of us just want to make it through the week without being hungry.

Only more concentrated because the communities are so much smaller... at least that was my observations...

Self publishing and vanity publishing are two separate things.

I wrote, paid for editing, did cover design, and style sheets for my books on my own. The only thing I paid for out of pocket was the editing, because I deemed that worth the investment. $400 out of pocket, total.

The book is mine. I own it. If someone buys it I get 70% of the cover price. Amazon takes 30% because I use their website to sell my stuff. If I sold my ebooks through etsy, kobo, ibooks, or any other site or shop it would be the same. I give them a commission from the cover price for each sale, but everything is mine. I can do this with ebooks and hard cover books. I can print them at home on a laser printer and sell it at flea markets. It's mine.

With vanity presses... they own the book. They charge you for everything, type setting, cover art, editing, etc etc. They give you little to no marketing, or make you pay for marketing, then they give you a small royalty for every book sold. Usually less than 10%. Then if you want to self publish... too bad. You can't. You signed an exclisivity clause. You have to go through them.

With traditional publishers they front the bill for everything... marketing, editing, covers, etc. They give you a royalty of 7-10%, and usually an advance. The big thing you get with a traditional publisher is free access to their editors, and distribution networks, something that can be the difference between thousands or millions of dollars. More often, you just get the advance.

The difference between all of them is how they make their money.

Traditional publishers make money by selling more books. The more they sell, the more they make.
Amazon, and other self publish marketplaces also make money by selling more books. The more they sell the more they make.
Because of that, traditional markets and self publishing markets are in business to get your book noticed and sell more of them.

Vanity presses make money by selling the author services, and selling the author copies of their own book. They have no incentive to sell more of your books, because they only really make money from you, the author. Often for things you could have done for free or much cheaper through amazon or independent services.

Author Solutions, now part of Penguin Books, is a great example of this. Penguin is a traditional publisher. They buy your book, fix it up, sell it and give you royalties. AS also signs you to a contract. Then they sell you services to "fix" your book. Then you get a small royalty after you paid for all the stuff.

If you're going to pay for editing and such anyway then you might as well self publish and keep as much of the royalties as you can.

edit- spelling

Maybe you should write one then.