Today, I received the below email from a well-known organization that reviews children’s books:
Dear Judy Dykstra-Brown,
Thank you for your interest in XXXXXXXXXXXXXX. Unfortunately, we can’t review books from vanity presses like CreateSpace*. For more of our submission guidelines, please see our website here: XXXXXXXXXXXXXX.
XXXXXXXXXX
Editorial Assistant
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX*note from Judy: CreateSpace is a company within Amazon that aids self-publishing authors in formatting,, printing and distributing their books.
My feelings about being labeled a “vanity press” author will be best expressed by displaying here the letter I wrote back to the assistant who had written the letter:
Dear XXXXXXXX,
I thank you for your prompt reply to my inquiry.
Although I certainly understand your reasons for not wanting to consider privately published material, I would like to bring one matter to your attention.
I have been writing for over 50 years. I have written and published three books, published nearly 40 articles in print and online magazines, won a national first prize for my poetry, edited a poetry journal and now coordinate a popular poetry series. I am in the process of having five more children’s books illustrated and working on a novel and two poetry anthologies. In my early career, I taught literature and writing for ten years and edited a teenage poetry anthology.
I mention these facts to explain why I feel it is an insult to have my decision to publish my own work called a “vanity”. Certainly, I am aware of the term, just as I am aware of other racial and physically derogatory terms that were once considered the norm but which in an enlightened age have come to be recognized as insulting and prejudicial.
May I ask your group to consider not using the term “vanity press” as a blanket term for self-published material?
I thank you for your efforts to reward excellent work in the field of children’s literature.
Best Regards,
Judy Dykstra-Brown
I would be most interested in other bloggers’ thoughts about this matter. Is blogging, also, considered just another “vanity” means of expression? I know that a great deal of status is attached to being published by a recognized publishing company, but do all writers who choose another path deserve to have their efforts considered as mere vanity? Is that our main goal? Is that what we deserve to be labelled as? Is it too much to ask to be labelled as what in truth we are—self-published?
Frida Kahlo had two gallery exhibitions in her entire lifetime. One of her paintings just sold for 5 million dollars!!! Were her artistic endeavors, in her lifetime, mere vanities? What of Van Gogh? Or Emily Dickinson? Only a few of Franz Kafka’s works were published during his lifetime. Johann Sebastian Bach was widely known as an organist, but his fame as a composer occurred after his death. Henry David Thoreau could not find a publisher for many of his works.
Certainly, I am no Emily Dickinson or Henry David Thoreau, and those who go through the rigors and humiliations of trying to find an agent and publisher certainly deserve plaudits for possessing determination as well as talent. I admit that I have neither the inclination nor the energy to jump through the hoops necessary to find a “legitimate” publisher. I just want to write, and I will not accept the label of “vanity” being attached to my writing.
Yes, I am proud of my efforts in doing all of the work myself that a publisher and editor normally do. Yes, I am proud of the fact that I have continued to write for 50 years with very little monetary recompense. But I don’t think my need to be heard is prompted by vanity any more than the determination of professionally published authors is. We write because we need to write. It is a drive and what, in my case, gives meaning to my life. If that is vanity, then long live vanity! But please say it behind my back—not as an official representative of your guild or company or association or library or agency or board of merit.
Now I will climb down off my soapbox and get back to work on what I do for love, not vanity. If I’ve struck a chord, please add your voice to my protest by publishing your comments on my blog.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 
That’s telling them lady! Keep up the good work, their labeling self publishers as vanity is discusting, probably couldn’t add sexist though, darn.
Do u have a color lazer printer? Do u like it? Fast, how much u pay? Cheaper in the long run cause of ink? Magazine quality? I seriously thinking I want a printer/scanner so am researching. Thought I may print some paintings and sell at gallery. Also getting an iPhone Monday! Seems like a good new toy. As will the printer be. Ha, gotta keep those brain bits going somehow. Love you, goodnight, Betty
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Getting crusty in my young old age.
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Love your spunk, and your writing talent! Keep pouring it on, Judy. Great letter! Betty, I just got an IPhone on Wed after my old phone got fried while being charged. Am loving it, although I haven’t begun to figure out everything yet, but am enjoying the texting, which I thought I would NEVER do. Lost all my phone numbers in the old phone so will have to wait until I get home from Florida to find some of my numbers. Creeping into old age.
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Well I am totally disappointed that the last texting holdout in the world, except for myself, has gone over to the dark side. Now I’ll have to find some other reason to hold you in high esteem. I just got today’s post finished. Decided to try to write on the blog instead of writing in Word and then posting. I’ll never do that again. I had more viewers today view the blog before I’d finished posting it than I did all day yesterday! Or perhaps they knew, and these are all token views. Mysteriouser and mysteriouser. Anyway, today’s post, now that it is finally up, is about your former home so I dedicate it to thee.
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If you can’t think of any reasons, I will be be happy to regale you with a looooong list. Looking forward to reading about our old house. Tony and I will always think of it as “our” house.
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Ah by your old home, I meant Chicago. Read today’s post–probably published after you had signed out. No doubt one day I’ll write about your house. I’m bound to run out of topics eventually and be reduced to talking about architecture.
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Can’t wait to read your story about Chicago, too! Everything you write is always interesting.
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It’s on now…
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I learned so much by reading this. I too think about what this late stage in life means for me. If my current animals don’t survive me, I can never again have a puppy, unless I am okay with leaving my pet behind, which I’m not because I understand my pets and others won’t. When someone dies, immediate friends usually go to their family home. Why do I become worried, and why is their house always clean. If I were to die suddenly and everyone rushed to my house, say on a Friday…I would be mortified.
Your sisters, your dream, your hopes and fears were all touched on in this blog post, and “Vanity” writing is exactly as you called it? You go girl!
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Mary… thanks for taking me back to these two posts, both of which I’d long forgotten. Don’t worry about your house. You won’t be mortified, because you will be dead, having lived life when you had it to live–writing and travelling and walking your dogs and supporting your friends. None of them will care if your house isn’t perfect, as they don’t now, I’m sure. What they care about is that you are a kind and loving and supportive friend who enjoyed her life and was productive.
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