Wikipedia:Vanity and predatory publishing

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Shortcut WP:VANPRED

Vanity publishing and predatory publishing are two models which allow publication without any of the normal processes of editorial or peer review.

In vanity publishing, the author usually pays for the publication of the material, which is usually these days delivered via print on demand, incurring little to no cost to the publishing house. Vanity presses often have no selection criteria and provide none of the normal services of a publishing house, such as legal review, proofreading, copy editing or fact checking. There is a list of vanity presses and self-publishing houses at Wikipedia:List of companies engaged in the self-publishing business. The best known is probably lulu.com.

In academia, vanity publishing has also been referred to as "write-only publishing". There may be no charge to the author, and the publisher may make their money by selling copies at high prices solely to libraries of record (large university libraries, the Library of Congress etc). Publishers called out for this practice include Lambert Academic Publishing, IGI Global^[1][2][3] and Edwin Mellen Press. These books may publish fringe thought and may be used to inflate the reputation of otherwise mundane authors.