[Publisher] Leigh Walker Books

Based on the info you provided, I think you've just answered your own question. Stay away.

Maybe someone with more computer fu than me can see if this one has the same ISP addy as the defunct BooksUnbound. Kudos to you for spotting the name!


Any "publisher" who offers "services" is going to cost the writer money at some point. That is in violation of Yog's Law.

Their website is not a confidence-builder. Quite the opposite.

Look what's missing:

No physical street address or even a PO box on the contact page.

A serious lack of information about, oh, everything. That is the most naked publishing website I've ever seen.

Contrast it with the website of another young publishing house. http://www.darkstarbooks.net/

There, you've got location, a phone number, and they'll even let you check out their contract if you're curious. They don't offer "services", which is in their favor. They offer advances. Like a publisher is supposed to.

LW books has only got one book, too.

Let's look at that---ONE book for sale. One.

Okay, they have to start somewhere, but while the book has 16 glowing, 5-star reviews on Amazon, I can't help but be suspicious. If they're honest reviews and not sock puppet friends of the author or publisher, then why was the author unable to place her fantastic book with a larger house for a wider audience and real money?

Just a thought.

They're too new. Wait a year. Submit to some other place.

I hope you're not making the rookie mistake of starting with smaller presses or the like, thinking they will go easier on a new writer.

The good ones are going to be much more picky about what they accept since they have more at stake. They have high overheads and low profits, printing far fewer books a year than a larger house.

The bad ones will take just about everything, knowing they can probably sell enough copies to their writers to keep afloat. Or they could be well-intentioned but quite clueless about how to run a publishing business. Or they could be a scam operation.

In publishing the rules are reversed. You always start at the top with the biggest publisher/agent you can find and work your way down.

I wasted time with small presses (doing a lot of rewrites after each rejection) then sent my book in to the biggest dog on the block.

Damned if they didn't buy it.


Please, check out this highly informative letter appearing on the Writer Beware blog!

Leigh Walker Books' website is registered to its only author, Cynthia Parks, with a Georgia address. So it looks to me like an expanded self-publishing endeavor.

BooksUnbound's website is registered to Leslie Cholowsky, in Canada.

- Victoria

Their offer of services is addressed to other small publishers and to writers who want to self-publish. It doesn't look to me like they're offering to publish such customers' books under the LeighWalkerBooks imprint.

I can't vouch for the quality of their work, but at first glance it looks like a legitimate business.

Leigh Walker Books

Friends,
A routine Google search turned up this very confusing and very distressing conversation. I'm the CEO of Leigh Walker Books, an independent publisher located in Georgia and incorporated in 2008. We are currently the publishers of Houses, by Cynthia Rogers Parks, of Think Outside the Inbox, by David Cummings and Adam Blitzer, and have wo forthcoming titles scheduled, one for the winter of this year and another for the spring of 2011.

Our company name was formed from my wife's and my middle names. There is no individual by the name of Leigh Walker in our organization, and we have no knowledge of any such individual. If someone by that name does exist, in publishing or any other industry, this is pure coincidence.

I'm greatly disturbed by the suggestion in some of these posts that anyone--absolutely anyone--has been "taken in" by our organization or that we have treated anyone, but especially an aspiring writer, unfairly and I'd very much appreciate a public airing of any such accusation.

Every query to our staff and every manuscript submission we have ever received has been thoroughly and thoughtfully reviewed and we have responded to every single submission. We are a small publisher but a rapidly growing one and while we simply cannot afford to publish every book that comes our way we cannot afford either to summarily dismiss any genuine talent or to treat writers or inquirers unfairly.

I would very much appreciate hearing from any of those who have commented here, or from anyone else, who has questions about our company or is confused about our professional credentials or intent.

I can be reached at [email protected], or at 3510 Brittany Cove, Kennesaw, GA 30152.

Thanks,
Adrian Bowers

Leigh Walker Books

An addendum to my previous post: Until now we had no knowledge whatsoever of "Books Unbound." There is no connection to our company with this entity. You can be sure, however, that we will investigate this.

Thanks,

Adrian Bowers

Thanks for your post, Adrian. Can you shed some light on why your website URL is registered to Ms. Parks?

Also, as a suggestion, it'd be great if you'd include some background info about the publisher, along with the names of your staff and their credentials, on your website.

- Victoria

Thanks, Victoria,
I believe our URL is assigned to Cynthia because we were setting up her author site on the same day and transferring both to a new host. I'm not sure I did this myself but it's certainly possible. Actually, given my tech skills and history with multi-tasking, it's probable.
As for your other question, a company page re-design has already been completed, and includes this information, but we're trying to wrest the dot com domain, which we also own through enom, away from Google in order to maintain the site there instead of at LeighWalkerBooks.net, which is somewhat less desirable. I'll return to post here when this has been accomplished. In the meantime, thanks for your inquiry and the folks here for giving us the opportunity to clear a few things up.

Adrian