Specifically, this particular press tells us the following:
Without an established reputation, it is almost impossible to find a publishing house willing to invest in your talent by financing your first book.
If one does, the terms are often so bad for the author or photographer that profits are never realized. How are they defining profits here, I wonder? Yes, it’s true that advances don’t always earn out–but the writer nonetheless gets to keep that advance–they pay nothing, and they get paid. That sounds like profit to me. Along the way, even a “failed” book will sell at least a few thousand copies. On the other hand, to publish a single thousand copy print run, this particular self-publisher charges the author as much as $12,900. And then tells the writer: A hoped-for scenario would be to write off your expenses, get enough sales to break-even or produce a small profit, and then publish profitable additional printings or new editions. So, they’re admitting writers probably won’t make much profit self-publishing (true), but claim it’s a better route than traditional publishing because you won’t make any profit there (false). In fact, the usual, no-hope-required scenario for new authors without established reputations who publish with traditional publishing houses is to receive is to receive at least several thousand dollars up front, before the book is released. Losing money, or even just “breaking even,” via traditional publishing isn’t even on the table, not for the author. Some publishers sell a book at retail until costs are recouped and then remainder the rest at deep discounts. The author often never gets any remuneration. Even if a traditional publisher does remainder a book, the author gets to keep their advance. In other words, they get, yes, renumeration. If you believe in yourself, if you believe that you are a good photographer or writer, if you believe you can produce a book or calendar that will sell, you should publish your own. Once published, your book can be used to establish yourself as an accomplished expert in your field. People might enjoy or not enjoy a self-published book, but the act of self-publishing does not, in itself, establish one as any sort of expert. All a self-published book says is, “Hey, I was able to afford to self-publish a book.” If one’s book is any good, one probably wants to get a stronger message about yourself out there than that. It can open doors. It can help garner prestige. It can spread your message or talent to countless other people. It can pave the way to future publication. But more likely, it will lead to weeks and months and years spent peddling your current book instead of working on your next one. In a few cases, yeah, self-publishing has led to success. And everyone is deeply aware of those few cases, and can rattle them off. No one even tries to rattle off the names of the cases where traditional publishing (even of those without an “established reputation”) led to success, because there are too many to memorize them all. Orders of magnitude more. There are cases (most of them involving niche markets) where self-publishing makes sense. But in those cases, there’s no need to misrepresent the nature of traditional publishing in order to get writers to bite. There’s no reason writers with projects suited to self-publishing can’t understand the drawbacks, understand the nature of both traditional and self-publishing, and then make an informed decision.