Talented young author Leo scoops US publishing deal

“There is SO much wrong with this story.

"Me and My Best Friend" was originally published over a year ago, and if you do even the smallest amount of background checking you'll find that it does appear to have been written by Leo's mother, and not by Leo himself.

Both Strategic and AuthorHouse are vanity publishers; my guess is that Leo's mother is represented by Robert Fletcher (who last year was labelled "fraudulent and frivolous" by a judge who found against him), head of The Writers Literary Agency, which is currently being investigated by Florida's Attorney General.

I've covered the real story on my blog, here:

http://howpublishingreallyworks.com/?p=3203

I don't think anyone comes out of this story well. It's exploitative in all sorts of ways.”

“Anion is not being mean. This family has been duped. The mom's agency, AuthorHouse, is another Vanity Press. It's their choice to self-publish (or the mother's, rather), but saying her son signed a contract for 23 books is dishonest. When artists sign a contract for their work, they get paid. This family isn't being paid. They're being sucked dry. There are way cheaper ways to self-publish, if that's the goal. Lulu.com would do print-on-demand for peanuts. Vanity presses like the ones they used are frequently being sued for their false promises and exorbitant fees. This family deserves our sympathy, but not our blind excitement.

I passed along this story before doing research, too, and am sad that somebody's sneaky marketing practices have duped even more people. There's a lot of information shooting through cyberspace. Next time I'll try to look a little more closely.”

“If you'd bothered to do even the smallest amount of research, you would see that Strategic Book Publishing is a VANITY PRESS. This boy, sadly, did not win anything; his mother paid to get his book published, and since her "agent" submitted the book to SBP, her "agent" is likely cheating her as well.

The owner of Strategic is currently being sued for fraud by the Florida Attorney General.

We should be trying to help this child and his mother, and stop them from being exploited, rather than applauding them because they were taken in by a scammer and are now doing what anyone else in the world could do, and pay for someone to publish their work.

In REAL publishing, the writer gets paid.

Very disappointed that there wasn't any fact-checking done; a simply Google search would have turned up all of this information.”

“What is wrong with you Anon! Thats a little boy, he has probably only just started to write at all of course he needs help. But if it is his artistic concept than the piece of art (in this case the writing) is every bit as much his as his mothers.

My niece is 8 and she has an incredible imagination, and thats not just coming from me, a biased Aunty. She couldnt put it on paper very well herself but she can tell you a story of great depth with twists and turns and amazing clarity. If her mum (who also is an aspiring author) chose to help Trixie write this stuff down, it would still be Trixie's book.

I can't believe you would be so mean to say something like that. Don't you think his enthusiasm for reading and writing is very promising in this day and age? Better than an obsession with video games and TV.

Good on the little lad, it is a healthy interest and I am very impressed. Well done and great success to him in the future and good on his Mum, she sounds like a great Mother who is very involved with her sons interests.

:) What a nice story.”

“Who gives a xxxx good on them.”

“So basically his mother is the one that is writing the books and has claimed that her son is involved for publicity reasons.

This is like somebody claiming that they helped Usain Bolt win a gold medal because they decided on the colour of his trainers that day...”

“I wonder if his mother help's him with his homework aswell.”