The Difference Between

Nothing is what it used to be. Since the recent (and major) advances of self-publishing and ebooks, people have been tossing labels and terms on anything. In fact, it has been done so often that most have been letting it slide... which led to the confusion of others and the creation of this post. The old definition of the terms are...

Mainstream Publishing meant that you were published by a big publishing company, or something like that.

Vanity Publishing meant that you were paying someone to be the publisher and handle everything that must be done with it.

Indie Publishing meant that your manuscript got accepted and was published by the small presses, who are independent from the big publishing houses.

Self-Publishing meant that you are the publisher. You did not have a publishing company that helped you, you set the retail price, bought the ISBN, your name is on copyright page, etc.

Now it is...

Traditional Publishing means mainstream.

Vanity Publishing means the same thing as before, except that it is now a category of Self-Publishing.

Indie Publishing means that you self-published.

Self-Publishing means that you published your novel, most of the time with the help of sites such as CreateSpace, Lulu, etc.

Maybe I should give up along with everyone else and accept the new meanings. I'm starting to think that my stance on sticking to the old ones are making me seem... unreasonably stubborn or close-minded to change. Would it really matter that much if we started loosening up the terms? Although I still won't accept that full-on vanity publishing is self-publishing. What do you think?