PERENNIAL PROBLEMS WITH PUBLISHING

I am still bemused by what I read, and what I am told by others, of the relatively new self-publishing arm of  Penguin Random House.   It certainly appears to be true that these reputable publishers have either bought out or amalgamated with  a company called Author Solutions and they, if what one reads in on-line complaints is to be believed, sit decidedly at the other end of the publishing spectrum .  The latter have practiced under a number of differing identities and are essentially engaged in what until recently was called `Vanity Publishing’ though that particular idiom is now almost as politically incorrect as terms like Gollywogs and Dagos.  We just don’t talk like that anymore as you well know and in this day and age one hesitates even to observe that someone is blind and struggles instead with `visually challenged’;   after all,  even the Deaf Association now calls itself the Hearing Association.     So I can only imagine that the Vanity Publishing arm of Penguin Random House will have to re-brand as Supported Publishing or Aided Publishing. 

Either way it is strange that there has been very little comment on this unsettling development in the Trade Press or even the Traditional Press and I only came across it very recently by accident.

I must be totally honest and say I found it hard to believe though it does explain the odd skulking into the market of some recent Random House publications – shiny new books that though they receive splendid reviews then become strangely absent from many retailer’s shelves.