If you pitch Chronicle Books and it rejects you, be on the lookout for them to pitch you back a self-publishing service. If a writer referred by Chronicle uses the self-publishing service Blurb, Chronicle gets a piece of the action. [UPDATE: Chronicle Books says the information in the article I read to get this information is inaccurate. See comment from Chronicle in this post’s comments.]

I don’t think this is unethical, assuming proper disclosure, and I would hope most writers would know better than to assume one rejection means that they have to pay to get their book published. However, I find it very distasteful and rather insulting. Tacky, tacky on you, Chronicle! (Read more about it here)
I am very happy self-publishing is possible and think many people get a lot out of having control over the publishing process. There is a great community of people who share their work this way. But then there are people who believe that they will make back all the money they spent self-publishing once some big shot agent or publisher sees their book. I think that is a terrible misunderstanding of the potential and purpose of self-publishing.
Self-publishing is not the YouTube of the book world. It costs money — in many cases, a lot of money because most people can’t really do it themselves; they need to pay a service. And distribution is a nightmare. I’ve seen people with stacks of self-published books on a foldout table at a local book fair, shouting at people to buy their writing like it was some kind of multi-purpose, infomercial kitchen gadget.

Getting the book on paper isn’t the hardest part. Getting people to read it — and pay to do so — is.

–Marcia