fallsfromtrees wrote:You can find vanity publishers that will print trade paper versions of books for about $10/copy, in quantity 1000, but now you have the fulfillment problems - who are you going to pay to package and ship the books. And if you are going to ship to bookstores (like Barnes & Noble or Books a Million, remember that they expect a discount of 40% off of the list price (more if you are Amazon), and the right to ship any unsold copies back to you for a refund (and you are paying for the shipping). So instead you hire a fulfillment house, and pay them their fees, an pretty soon you find that you are your own publishing house - This way lies madness.
In addition, those cheap vanity publishers generally provide no editing, often no proof copy for the author to check over, no cover art, free fonts rather than professional fonts that look better, cheap binding, and no guarantee of quality. They do little more than take your Word document (or whatever format) and send it straight to the printer with a template that adds title page and verso.
Librarians hate vanity presses, especially when a patron insists on getting his book into the collection.
[edit]
I should clarify that I am talking about here about those publishers that deserve to be called vanity presses. There are also legitimate self-publishing presses that do a quality job for those who want small quantities of self-published materials professionally done.