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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26079
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26079
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Vanity presses make money from authors, not from selling copies, so there's at least a decent chance you've kept or can get back your copyright. Unfortunately, if you didn't study your contract to begin with, and they've proven so very poor, they're probably optimized mostly to wring more money out of you :-/

You need to check your contract to look for:

- **Who owns copyright.**
- **Who owns the book design,** which is different from who owns copyright over the text.
- **Rights reversion or contract termination,** which are the procedures to get back copyright from them if you've sold it.
- (I have also found [reference](http://www.fictionfactor.com/self/vanity.html) to an abhorrent practice where they don't claim copyright, but _do_ stipulate that "that "Author agrees that 1st Books indefinitely will retain possession of the materials submitted by Author to 1st Books and used to format the Work." i.e., your manuscript. I am not a lawyer and don't know if such terms can be challenged or interpreted more reasonably.)

This should, at least, help you know where you stand.

The other thing that can be very helpful is to search Google for stories of others in the same situation, with the same publisher. Try googling "[publisher name] scam". You might find others who have already dealt with this successfully.

Best of luck to you.

Original score: 10