Jim Henderson wrote:
> I thought the same thing, having had a few books published myself.  Paying
> in to have something published seems to me like paying to be listed in
> some "elite registry" and then having to purchase the books.
> 
> Someone wants to use stuff I've written or created, they pay me, not the
> other way around.
> 
> I'd love to hear the explanation behind this....
In the traditional art art world their is a circuit if "juried shows" 
which artists can enter.  Many are free but many have modest entry fees. 
  It is nothing more than vanity publishing hiding behind the guise of a 
contest, however they actually command a certain legitimacy.  Modest 
entry fees can legitimately cover costs and the ability to list 
acceptance in quantities of these shows gains a foot in the door on the 
regional college teaching circuit, where the world of stand alone 
professional artists is a foreign thing anyway. At the very least it 
shows you are serious enough to get yourself organized and enter 
hundreds of these things.

The practice of selling vanity "shows" in New York is of course a much 
nastier business.  Clients are thought to be little regional college 
professors seeking to protect their precious tenured positions.  Also 
their are foreign artists who seem to have no qualms, and no illusions, 
about buying a "New York" show then returning to their regional setting 
and leveraging the "New York" entry on their resume for all it is worth.

So it doesn't surprise me to see this show up in the web/cg world.  But 
here self-publishing is already the norm so seemingly the status of hard 
copy publishing is being traded on.  It might be an out and out scam, in 
the sense that no book will ever result.  Or it might just a trade on 
peoples vanity.

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