Nadia Lee: Why Simon & Schuster’s Archway Publishing Is Bad for Authors

From Nadia Lee, a response to the latest publishing news, and a handy comparison chart, reproduced below.

A few months ago, Penguin Books, realizing that their vanity-press venture was selling like coldcakes, bought the world’s leading experts on vanity press scams: Author Solutions, Inc. Now Simon & Schuster has announced a ‘premium’ vanity imprint, to be called Archway, run in ‘partnership’ with Author Solutions: which means that S&S will funnel slush writers to Archway, and AS will do the grunt work of separating them from their money. The so-called service is ‘premium’ because the ripoff is steeper than with most vanity presses: it starts with $1,599 for a simple children’s book and ranges up to $25,000 for the full-service screwing.

Withal, here is Ms. Lee’s comparison chart, so you can judge for yourself: [Read more…]