Our Story
I’m Leigh Michaels, and I’ve been a partner in and driving force behind PBL Limited from the very beginning — in 1994. At the time, I was 10 years into a career as an author of romance, and I was starting to teach and edit to help others achieve their writing dreams. My husband, Michael W. Lemberger, was an experience news photographer, illustrator, and collector of historic images. It was a great time to tackle some projects that we felt personally excited by.
Later, as the publishing industry changed, we opted to use our skills, experience, and resources to assist others in publishing their work. From the beginning, we’ve specialized in niche-market non-fiction — the sort of thing that bigger publishers felt wouldn’t sell well enough to be rewarding. We created cookbooks, how-to guides, and poetry collections, as well as textbooks and handbooks.
As soon as it became feasible to create heavily-illustrated books, we added local history books to the mix, and over time, local history became our specialty and our brand. PBL continues to focus on the unexpected — quality books for a discerning audience.
At Home in Ottumwa
In the mood for a contest? At Home in Ottumwa shares the stories behind more than 100 of Ottumwa’s historic, notable, and interesting houses — from neighborhoods all over the…
Gone… but not forgotten
What stands out to you about Ottumwa’s past? What do you miss? For a small city, Ottumwa’s history is relatively well-documented. While the earliest years are sketchy — the town’s…
Why a book about 1921?
The easy answer is because it’s a hundred years ago, and looking back exactly a century is always fun and fascinating. But the more deeply I looked into the…
Who Was Shakespeare?
Who wrote the plays and poems credited to William Shakespeare? Though professors and English teachers would have you believe the matter is settled and the author of Hamlet and Romeo…
Meet Me at the Depot
A spider web of railroad tracks crisscrossed Iowa’s prairies at the beginning of the 20th century. Everything from passengers and mail to newspapers, and a host of general cargo items,…
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