Oy. This from the
site:
"A Publisher run by Authors
Libros International was formed in 2006 by two authors frustrated by the lack of publishing opportunities available to new authors. Both were rejected by agents stating "we don't deal with unpublished authors" and inevitably by publishing houses claiming "we only deal with agents." A classic catch 22 to use Joseph Heller's immortal title.
Having gone through such negative channels, they set up their own company in order to give new authors that seemingly elusive opportunity of 'being published.'"
Could it be that they submitted their mss. to scam agents? Or, maybe, they sent their mss. to legit agents who weren't taking on new clients (and somehow misconstrued what was written in those rejections). I mean, if they've read agent blogs, like Rachel Vater's or Kristin Nelson's, they would've seen that they're taking on new writers. Legit agents take on unpublished authors all the time, for heaven's sake (unless, as mentioned before, agents decide they have enough clients to deal with at the moment).
Ooo, and publishing houses "claiming" to only deal with agents. If they'd done their research, they would've found this was true for most of the biggies, although you can still submit directly to places like Tor (and expect to wait about a year or more to receive back a reply).
Then there's this:
"What makes us different?
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We will not reject any author because he or she is previously unpublished.
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We accept all genres of writing.
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When you send us your manuscript, WE WILL READ IT."
All genres? They're a start up (or it seems so to me), and they're taking all genres? Shouldn't they concentrate on 1 genre or maybe 3, at most? Especially at the beginning?
And there's what they say about buying 100 books:
"The author must ‘expose’ their own book to as many people as they can. This can be via reviews, gifts to radio personalities, book clubs, newspaper columnists etc. Libros will be doing a similar exercise. It’s all about exposure and that one book passed onto a friend of a friend of a friend may just find its way to a certain Mr Speilburg or end up with the paperback reviewer from the Mail on Sunday or The New York Times."
Huh? Author, you have to trust to luck or the Fates in order for your book to gain the limelight. Or something.
I'm sorry, but if that's the best this "publisher" can do, I'd say no and move on to the next publisher (or start querying agents).
One last thing. If you're claiming to be a publisher, little things like spelling mean a lot: It's Spielberg. Sorry, but nothing gets me more irked when I see spelling mistakes like this. Doesn't give me much (if any) confidence as to their editing abilities.
~Nancy