We are a hybrid press. That means an author pays us to publish their book. It also means we have spent a lot of time explaining why that is not the same thing as a vanity press, usually to someone who has already been burned by one. So let us set the three words straight, and then give you the questions that separate them.

The three models, honestly

Traditional publishing. The publisher pays you. An advance, then royalties of 8 to 15 percent. They choose the books, they take the risk, they own most of the rights for years. Fewer than one manuscript in a thousand gets in, and nonfiction by a first-time author without a large audience almost never does. It is a good deal if you can get it. Most people cannot, and that is not a judgement on the book.

Self-publishing. You pay everyone: editor, designer, ISBN, and you keep 100 percent of what is left after the printer and the shop. You also do everything: hire, brief, check, upload, price, launch. Done well, it is the best deal there is. Done badly, it is a book with a homemade cover and a typo on page one, and it will sell to your family.

Hybrid publishing. You pay a press to do the publishing part properly: edit, design, register, distribute, under its imprint and ISBNs. You keep the rights and most of the income. The press's reputation is on the spine, so it does not take every book. The honest version of this is a service with a curator. The dishonest version is a vanity press with a nicer website.

The difference is not the money changing hands. In both cases the author pays. The difference is what the press is selling. A hybrid press sells editorial work and its own name. A vanity press sells the feeling of being published, and it will sell it to anyone.

Five minutes: the tells

You can usually spot a vanity press before you finish reading its homepage.

• They accepted your manuscript before reading it. Or within 48 hours. Or with a "congratulations" email that does not mention anything specific about the book. Reading a 70,000-word manuscript takes a working week.
• The price is a package, not a quote. "Gold", "Platinum", "Bestseller". A real quote depends on word count, state of the manuscript and what it needs. A tier you choose from a menu depends on how much they think you will spend.
• They talk about marketing before they talk about editing. Press releases, "distribution to 40,000 retailers" (that is just Ingram, it costs nothing), book trailers, a Hollywood option. If the first conversation is about how famous you will be, leave.
• Their catalog has no shape. A memoir next to a children's book next to a crypto guide, all with the same cover template. A press with a mission says no to most books. A press that says yes to everything has no mission.
• The ISBN is yours "for a fee". Or theirs, and you can buy it back. An ISBN costs $125. If it is being sold to you as a feature, everything else is too.
• Royalty "up to 50 percent". Of what? Net of printing, net of the shop's discount, net of "administrative costs"? Up-to is a number that exists to be smaller.

The eleven questions

These follow the IBPA Hybrid Publisher Criteria, which are the industry's own standard. A serious press will answer all eleven without hesitating. We have put our own answers after each, because it would be strange to ask you to demand transparency and then not give it.

One last test

Ask the press to tell you what is wrong with your manuscript. Not what is good about it. A vanity press cannot answer, because it has not read it, and does not want to risk the sale. An editor who has read it will have a list, and the list will sting a little, and that sting is what you are paying for.