The sad thing is, both Harlequin (whose vanity imprint is now called DellArte Press) and Thomas Nelson (whose vanity imprint uses the name WestBow Press, which was once a respectable imprint name in the Christian book publishing market), are so wrapped up in the short-term profits they’ll make of this, they refuse to see the harm it’ll do in the long run. You should see the arguments Michael Hyatt (Thomas Nelson’s CEO) can tie himself in knots to make. Whenever someone points out the utter bull and blatant hypocrisy, he conveniently ignores them.

Oh, and make no mistake. This is vanity publishing, not self-publishing, even though the lines are blurred (as Victoria Strauss recently blogged about on Writer Beware).