: Which well-established vanity publishers offer publishing for money and how much money is enough? I know that you need an agent to communicate publishing with big guys like Random House etc.

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Where are you based? US, UK, Australia?
This will help with providing you with some answers.
Also this article may steer you away from some vanity publishers. www.mbspress.com/new-articlepage-7/

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There are a couple of problems in answering your question. The first has to do with finding a reputable vanity publisher who can and will successfully distribute your book to the big books stores you appear to desire. Unfortunately, pretty much all vanity publishers have a bad reputation, and that fact alone has resulted in pretty much all big name book stores refusing to stock any books they publish. It doesn't really matter how good your book might be, the bad reputation of the vanity publishers will prevent the book stores from taking a chance and trying to stock your book.

The second problem is the actual process of getting your book into the book stores. Just like the big name publishers, the big name book stores have a reputation to uphold. They have to be very selective about which books they stock, because they not only have to protect their reputation, they also have to actually sell books, which is more important. They rely on the big name publishers to select the books most likely to sell, and they are much less likely to take a chance on a new and unproven writer.

Quite frankly, I agree with John Smithers that your best option may be to self-publish your book. If you are willing to spend that much money, then you should be able to accomplish your goals by going with self-publishing. If your book picks up a following and you can prove that people are interested in it, then every book store will want to carry it, even if it is self-published. Not only that, but you may find that some of the big name publishers are willing to take a chance on it as well.

Bottom line, you need to write a great book. Then it is up to you to decide whether to go through an agent to get it published traditionally or just handle all of that yourself. Ultimately, you have to prove yourself to someone, whether it is an agent, an editor, or the fan base you build through self-publishing.

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well-established vanity publishers

That's an oxymoron and your problem. Vanity publishers are not well established. Bookstores avoid vanity publishers like the pope satanic masses.

A vanity press tells you they distribute your book for money, but honestly, why should they care about your book after you have paid them? The only one who cares about distributing your book is you (and a normal publishers who pays you for the right to publish your book).

As far as I see it, the solution to your problem is the thing you do not want: CreateSpace. If you become your own publisher and use this (or a similar) service to make your book available, you can sell it to the bookstores. You can get into the lists from which bookstores order their book. So you are creating your own "vanity" publishing house, but you run it like a real publisher.

Of course this is a lot of work and I guess you can find people and pay them to do the work. Nonetheless you have to coordinate and supervise it. Again, only you care about your book.

To learn about how to be your own publisher I recommend reading how others have already done it.

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