Leo Hunter Lands Book Deal at 6-Years-Old

By Maryann Yin on GalleyCat -  Aug 27, 2010

Most 6-year-olds are reading Dr. Seuss and moving on to Harry Potter. Leo Hunter isn't just reading books, he's also writing them. Strategic Book Publishing has signed a 23-book deal with the 6-year-old UK native.

Hunter is publishing under the pseudonym, J.S. Huntlands. His first title is Me & My Best Friend, about a little boy Liam and his dog Henry. The story behind these two characters was conceived when Hunter was 5.
When asked about writing and books, Hunter told the Mirror: "Writing makes me very, very happy. It's so interesting. I like Harry Potter but I like my books even more. I would like to be more famous than JK Rowling -- even more famous than Cheryl Cole and Simon Cowell."

Surprisingly, there isn't a huge publicity splash from Strategic Book Publishing about Leo Hunter. The publisher's website offers this an explanation: "We are relatively new, and we are aggressively launching as many titles this year as our budget will allow. We are a smaller 'boutique' publisher."

Hunter's mother Jaime, 29, is a published author herself and convinced her agency to take on her son as a client. From there, publishers in both the US and the UK were contacted until Strategic Book Publishing awarded Hunter his 23-book deal.

UPDATE: Writer Beware! writes a cautionary post about the publisher behind this project.