A vanity press any publishes any book for which the author is willing to cover expenses. Hence, the term vanity is derived from the belief that the author, in this instance, must be vain and they just want to see their name on the cover of a book. The intended market, therefore, is the author himself/herself.
There is definitely a difference between a vanity press and a small press. The small press performs the traditional roles of editorial selection, binding and review, and marketing at its own expense, rather than at the expense of the author. As stated earlier, a vanity press will generally agree to print and bind any author's work if the author is willing to pay for the service; these fees typically form a vanity press's profits.
Utilizing a vanity press may initially sound like a great idea because many of them bundle their services and include marketing and distributing your book in the bundle as an added benefit. But they generally don't prove to be such a great value for the money. Because every aspect of the process can be out to bid, truly self-publishing a book can be much more cost effective than vanity publishing; it can also result in a higher-quality product. And an added benefit is that, completed books are owned by the author, who is able to keep all proceeds from sales.
Remember: Vanity publishers have no economic incentive to get books into the hands of readers, since they have already been paid by the author. Some vanity publishers don't even have arrangements with book wholesalers, making it impossible to obtain books except through the author.
