Ethics Statement

LeMay Publishing was founded on six words: stars are made, not born. Every policy, every practice, and every institutional decision flows from that conviction.

The Agent Prohibition

The literary agent system exists because traditional publishers created a barrier to entry that required an intermediary to breach. LeMay Publishing does not erect that barrier. We accept direct submissions. We review every manuscript ourselves. We negotiate directly with the author. There is no function for an agent to perform — and we will not pretend otherwise by accepting agent-represented submissions and allowing fifteen percent of our author's royalties to be siphoned by a party whose services we have rendered unnecessary.

This is not hostility toward agents as individuals. It is a refusal to participate in a structural inequity. If an author can submit directly, review their enhancement directly, and negotiate terms that are identical for every author we publish — then the agent adds no value. And we will not allow our authors to pay for the absence of value.

Author-First Philosophy

Every decision at LeMay Publishing is evaluated against a single criterion: does this serve the author? The fifty-percent royalty rate is not a marketing tactic. It is the natural result of building an operation that does not extract surplus value from the creative work it publishes. We bear the costs of editorial enhancement, production, and distribution. The author bears the cost of creating the work. The revenue is shared equally.

Editorial Standards

The prestige of LeMay Publishing is measured by the commercial success of our authors and by the institutional commitment to treat every author's effort with the full weight of our editorial and production resources. Every LeMay Publishing Author has equal standing, equal royalty, equal treatment.

Content Standards

LeMay Publishing does not impose ideological requirements on the works we publish. We publish across the full spectrum of ideas, arguments, and narratives. Our editorial standards are literary and commercial — not political. We will not publish works that constitute incitement to violence, targeted harassment of identifiable individuals, or material that is illegal under the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Beyond these boundaries, we defend the author's right to write what they choose.

Data Handling

Submitted manuscripts are stored securely and accessed only by LeMay Publishing's editorial team for the purpose of editorial enhancement. We do not share manuscripts with third parties. We do not use submitted manuscripts for any purpose other than the editorial and production services described in our publishing agreement. Authors may request deletion of their manuscripts at any time, subject to the terms of any active publishing agreement.