Last week Penguin Random House announced the sale of beleaguered Author Solutions, the large (but seemingly getting smaller) vanity press that is known by
several imprint names in the publishing industry including Xlibris, AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Trafford and WestBow Press.
As independent publisher Colin Robinson of Or Books cautioned: «It's possible that some of the publishers I've never heard of are in fact
imprints set up by the author of the book but, especially as
several appeared with books by more than one author (or at least one author's
name), it seems unlikely that more than a few are.