Wikipedia talk:List of companies engaged in the self-publishing business

Rationale for page creation

The need for this page was discussed on Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Noticeboard and there was support for its creation to inform users. And hopefully, eventually lead to a bot that checks ISBNs that lead to these and flag them. History2007 (talk) 20:23, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

There was an article category on it, so I removed that. I'm thinking this page should also list any imprint names as well, like Writers Club Press for iUniverse, so that editors can easily identify those. --RL0919 (talk) 21:39, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. I have asked for help on a few Wikiprojects and people there may know of various imprints to add here. History2007 (talk) 22:02, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

By the way, does cafe press publish books? Or should this page move to "List of self-publishing book companies" for clarity? History2007 (talk) 22:07, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Apparently they offer print on demand services. Not sure if the books would bear their name as the publisher though, which is what I think we would be looking to identify on this page. Same goes for a company like Yudu Media. If their name won't appear in citation info, then they aren't important to include on this particular page -- but there's also no great harm in having a couple of extras on the list, either. --RL0919 (talk) 05:54, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, those 2 probably do not fit here. By teh way the intro fix was pretty useful. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 08:17, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Should we put external link to company's website?

Resolved

If a company doesn't have an article to WikiLink to, should we put an external link to the company's website? Normally, I don't think we wouldn't do this in article space, but since this is Wikipedia space, it's primarily for our benefit. I think it might be useful in case we're researching some source, but I wanted to run it past everyone first to see what others think first. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:11, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

I think it is ok to add links. History2007 (talk) 16:39, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Done.[1] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:55, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

shorthand

List needs a short name such as WP:LOSPC. IRWolfie- (talk) 18:32, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

brownwalker.com

This publisher looks like vanity press, see [2][3] (I'm not contending that the two links are reliable, just that they indicate that it's vanity press), it looks like the reference works have no peer review. IRWolfie- (talk) 13:45, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

They have a wiki-page Universal Publishers (United States). I am not sure what to make of them actually. The parent is a print on demand company. I looked on Amazon and some of their books were on topics I know about and they are way off, e.g. "Disproof of Bell's Theorem". And they have a book by Ben Goertzel who is generally known as being on the far side of the far side in computer speculations. He has never produced anything. So they seem to publish far out items, without much review. Goertzel and Disproof of Bell's Theorem would certainly not get published by serious publishers. We are entering a new age of "murky press" and the boundaries seem to be deliberately blurred by some publishers by calling themselves academic presses. History2007 (talk) 14:11, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Check the pure science list, they claim to have someone who has his own "universal relativity" which supersedes relativity and the big bang theory, and a book by a parapsychologist amongst others. No evidence of anything close to peer review or any criteria for being accepted, they appear to be based around selling small volumes of books, they mention giving the copyright back after 2k sales which seems rather small. IRWolfie- (talk) 15:39, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

I think they are in the academic-infomercial game in a sense. The whole strategy seems to be "live on controversy". They seem just inches away from being a vanity pres, if not already in the territory. The term may be The Twilight Zone press really. Their books are not WP:RS in my view. By the way, I posted on WP:COIN about it. History2007 (talk) 15:46, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Strong Tower

Do we include subsidy publishing companies? The issue was brought up by an editor who pointed out that the books at Prewrath are subsidy published, after I removed his self-published book. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 16:45, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I think so. Part of the point of creating this list was to help editors more easily identify self-published books to make sure that they are not being misused. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:22, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

List of self-publishing companies vs. Wikipedia:List of self-publishing companies

I see the template:

Not to be confused with Wikipedia:List of self-publishing companies.

on List of self-publishing companies

... but, quite frankly, I am confused, as I am sure many others are too. We have two parallel articles in two parallel name spaces with the identical name, and neither concisely makes clear why the apparent duplication.

• List of self-publishing companies
• Wikipedia:List of self-publishing companies

I suppose one is supposed to be resources for people wanting to self-publish and the other, maybe is a list of self-publishing channels? Maybe that would explain why some companies are on both lists. In particular, I don't understand why one of these is in the Wikipedia name-space. Also, it is confusing that both pages have the same identical title. Maybe they should be merged? Maybe create a table and check off stats and services that each provide. A sortable merged list would begin to be useful. Enquire (talk) 04:13, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

The differences between the two stem from the fact that one is in article space and the other is not. List of self-publishing companies is in article space and only contains companies that are notable. Wikipedia:List of self-publishing companies is not in article space and companies need not be notable. The former exists for our readers. The latter exists for our editors in helping them determine whether a particular source meets our WP:V policy. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:08, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

The problem with the list that "exists for our editors in helping them determine whether a particular source meets our WP:V policy", that is, Wikipedia:List of self-publishing companies, is that Wikipedia is itself a self-published work. As a result anything published here - including this list- is, by definition, self-published and thus questionable. How then, can Wikipedia editors edit reliably if they are using a questionable source to assess whether or not a company is engaged in self-publishing? To exacerbate, this list (unlike the one the that exists for readers at large) does not contain any citations to support that a given company listed here is, indeeed, a self-published company. This means that, in theory, an editor could use thios list to support his preferred version of an article by simply listing in this list the company to which certain claim in a Wikipedia article is sourced.

BTW, the name of this article is, to be begin with, a bad name because, how can a company publish itself? Self-publishing is something that only writers who want to became authors do. A better name might be something like List of companies engaged in self-publishing business. And, as such, I have moved it. Mercy11 (talk) 19:23, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Updated lede to make it list-centered. Also removed vague word "provisional". Removed "author mill" as it is not the same as SP - in any event, if it's a self-published company, whether thru an author mill or not, just add it to the list. Mercy11 (talk) 17:13, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 June 2018

Include Damick Publications in the list. Website: www.damickpublications.com. Ckbansal23 (talk) 12:10, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

 Not done for now: Entries need to have their own Wikipedia page in order to be deemed notable enough. — IVORK _Discuss 23:21, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

 Done. @IVORK: please note that this is not the article List of self-publishing companies where indeed notability is required. On top of this page it says Publishers do not have to be notable to be listed here; those that are notable should also be included in the article List of self-publishing companies. Indeed this article is the place where self-publishing companies are listed, in order to allow us to verify the reliability of sources used in articles. - DVdm (talk) 07:12, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

John Hunt Publishing

I'm trying to figure out if this is a self-publishing/vanity press or not. It seems really confusing, based on this article [4] it appears they do some (see "CONTRACT LEVEL 4 (author contribution)"). Should it be included in the list? - GretLomborg (talk) 22:49, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Instructions for the list say “if you know that a company on this list is not primarily a self-publishing company, please remove it.” Question has to be whether this one is primarily so. Sources in the article say only a quarter of books are published in a co-op fashion (which can mean author and publisher split costs), and of those, mostly fiction, so not likely relevant here. Not true “vanity publishing” anyway. The dirty secret of the publishing industry is that a great many houses considered reputable have self-publishing arms, under other names. But they still exercise discretion, refuse ones they don’t care for. Hyperbolick (talk) 04:59, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Amazon Digital Services LLC

I have included "Amazon Digital Services LLC" as another name under the Amazon entry. See, for instance, this. Looks self-published to me. See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Coherent intelligence and Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#Coherent intelligence. - DVdm (talk) 13:03, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Also @Doug Weller:. - DVdm (talk) 13:17, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

SamEnrico Self-Publishing

What happened? Last twitter message dates from 2013 and their website is gone ("This domain name is for sale"). Sclaes (talk) 01:25, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Self-published vs blacklisted

According to WP:USEPS#The problem with self-published sources, a self-published article or book or monography which has been positevely reviewed by one or more peer-reviewed scientific or academic journals becomes a WP:reliable source to be cited in the WP articles. A positive review in a peer-reviewed jornal is not far different from a peer-review process of the book/article/monogrphy itself.

Therefore, to be self-published doesn't mean to be blacklisted from the WP articles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.14.139.179 (talk) 21:50, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

And your point would be ...? Did you actually read WP:SPS, WP:ABOUTSELF, and other related policies and guidelines?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:04, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Sussex Alpha

I have a strong suspicion that Sussex Academic Press (and its imprint The Alpha Press) are self-publishing houses, the first using a misleading name. There is no indication anywhere in their materials of a connection to any academic institution, and their website has a big "To Publish" button on it (i.e., they are advocating people to submit publishing inquiries).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:03, 30 November 2020 (UTC)