Lots and lots of warning signs, in my opinion.
1. They contacted you. Red Flag
2. Site is directed at writers, not readers. Red Flag #2
California Times Publishing is not for everyone. Some authors do a great job selling their books. We've run into a few that have taught us a few things as well. Every person in our staff has written something that is published online. We know what it feels like to be rejected. We also know what it feels like to sell. We are a marketing/management/publicity/agency for indie authors who want more out of their books than just a self published presence.
From their About Us page.
Sounds like they're authors first, whatever-the-hell-else second. Also looks like they're not exactly clear on what they're supposed to be themselves. On top of that, a "publisher for indie authors" is an oxymoron.
Plus, a competent editor, copy-editor or even proofreader should have caught that "We are a [...] publicity [...] for indie authors" doesn't make any sense at all. Fairly sure it's self-publishing, not "self publishing". (Unless you're the product you're publishing, of course...)
We bring readers to your book and they make the decision to buy or not, but at least you know readers are seeing it. Just becasue your book is published, doesn't mean people are opening up the front cover. What is it going to take to get them to buy? We know the answer.
Oh come on. A spelling mistake that even the most basic spell-checking program catches. How do you open up a [front] cover, by the way? And I doubt they know the answer, going by what they're saying just a few sentences earlier:
If your book meets our standards, we do everything we can to get you sales. Some of our books sell hundreds of copies, some sell only a few, but all of them get a fair chance with the same marketing program that has been proven over and over again, and it works.
(emphasis mine)
...nice that they're at least somewhat realistic when it comes to sales, but if
hundreds of copies is the upper margin of what they can do, with a risk of only selling a few, I see little if any difference with actual self-publishing.
I'd also hesitate to say that a "marketing program" has been proven over and over again if it results at best in a few hundred sales. Plus, this sounds like they market every book the exact same way. Regardless of subject or genre.
If you look further down the About Us page, there's a lovely little table of their 20 "bestselling books" with the number sold during one month--and since the months are all over the place, I highly suspect the months listed are the respective books'
best months.
Only 8 books in that top-20 have had a month where they sold over 100 books. The 20th bestselling book's listed (and likely best) month had 27 sales.
...and that's just from five minutes of poking around.