Vanity Press?

I saw something interesting today, which I thought I should share.

I work in a University for my 'day job'. Today I was helping proof read a module document, which will be part of a new Mass Communications degree. It was really interesting to see that one of the books on the reading list for the module was a CreateSpace produced book (CreateSpace is Amazon's self publishing company).

For those of us who are self-published I think this shows a massive change in the perception of the book market. Not all that many years ago people who self-published were assumed to be bad writers who's vanity brought them to self-publish substandard literature. The phrase 'vanity press' was a term used in the publishing sector and self-publishing was looked down on.

To see a self-published academic text make a University book list just highlighted to me how much that time has passed!

I thought this was a great bit of news to pass to all those fantastic self-published authors and to send a message to the readers out there - buy indie! There is some truely great literature out there and a lot more choice than the average bookstore shelf.