Vantage Press was a

self-publishing Self-publishing is the publication of media by its author at their own cost, without the involvement of a publisher. The term usually refers to written media, such as books and magazines, either as an ebook or as a physical copy using POD (pr ...

company based in the United States. The company was founded in 1949 and ceased operations in late 2012. Vantage was the largest

vanity press A vanity press or vanity publisher, sometimes also subsidy publisher, is a publishing house where anyone can pay to have a book published.. The term "vanity press" is often used pejoratively, implying that an author who uses such a service is publ ...

in the United States. By 1956, they were publishing hundreds of titles per year. By 1958, they were facing legal problems, as the

Federal Trade Commission The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction ov ...

raised charges regarding their use of the term "cooperative" to explain their business model, when the author was actually paying all of the costs. In 1990, the State Supreme Court in New York ordered Vantage to pay $3.5 million in damages to 2,200 authors it had defrauded. According to the plaintiffs, Vantage charged money upfront, but never promoted the books as the authors had expected.

References

Self-publishing companies Book publishing companies of the United States Publishing companies established in 1949 Companies disestablished in 2012 Defunct companies based in Massachusetts 1949 establishments in New York (state) 2012 disestablishments in Massachusetts {{US-publish-company-stub