Six-year-old author gets 23-book contract? Sure, and pigs fly!

Sept. 16, 2010 - PRLog -- ATLANTA, Ga. – Sept. 16, 2010 - A number of worldwide newspapers and online news outlets, particularly in Great Britain, recently carried a story about a 6-year-old boy who was said to have been offered a 23-book deal with a U.S. publisher. The deal, worth thousands of dollars, supposedly was offered after the publisher liked his first book, Me and My Best Friend, about the boy and his dog.
   According to Southern Review of Books editor Noel Griese, who has a story about the “contract” in the current issue of the online Southern Review of Books newsletter , the story is a hoax.
   Among the UK newspapers taken in whole cloth by the story were the Daily Mirror, The Sun and The Daily Telegraph. Among the many U.S. outlets falling for the fraudulent story was MediaBistro’s GalleyCat site – which has since retracted the story.
   A story by reporter Paul Whyatt at the “This Is Derbyshire” Web site in the UK originated the worldwide media coverage.  
   According to the Derbyshire story, Leo’s mother, Jamie Hunter, a novelist who lives in Derbyshire, and writes under the pseudonym J.S. Huntlands, “gave her literary agency Leo’s tale, and they brought it to the attention of U.S. publisher Strategic Book Publishing,” which then offered the alleged 23-book deal.
   As to Jamie Hunt’s author credentials, she wrote a novel about domestic violence, Nick: Twisted Minds, which she paid to publish with U.S. vanity press AuthorHouse.
   Leo supposedly will write under the same pseudonym as his mother, J.S. Huntlands, to protect his privacy.
   Trouble is, the story is a hoax. Mom Jamie published Me and My Best Friend in July 2009, when son Leo was only 4. In the introduction to the book, she writes, “Thank you to my son for the inspiration to write this series.”
        As for a publishing deal, Robert Fletcher, the principal in Strategic Book Group, responding from China, where he attended the 2010 Beijing Book Fair, said there were no contracts at his company with Leo Hunter.
       Many authors believe that publicity sells books, and that any publicity is good publicity. Here we have a story that went around the world, in all probability resulting in millions of impressions. Did all that publicity sell any books? Not very many, if we look at the Amazon rankings. Despite all the publicity, there has been little movement of the book.
       There's a place for "pay to play" publishing in the world, where the author pays to publish, just as there's a place for traditional publishing, where the publisher pays the author royalties. Granny Smith, who has written a memoir for the grandchildren and knows nothing about publishing, would probably do best paying to have her life story packaged and published. An author interested in making money would in most cases do better with a traditional publishing contract.

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Anvil Publishers is an Atlanta-based company currently marketing $14 million in books and $8 million in literary properties.