His brother John Ballantyne (1774–1821) was also with the publishing firm, which is noted for the publication of the Novelist's Library (1820), and many works edited or written by Scott.

James was born in Kelso, Scottish Borders in 1772, the oldest son in a family of successful merchants.

Due to the newspaper being only weekly, he desired to work with those in the literary field who could use his services on the days he wasn't printing the Mail.

[1][4] That same year, James secretly printed An Apology for Tales of Terror and The Eve of St John, which gave a start to Scott's writing career.

Due to financial constraints despite the publisher's success, he joined into an ownership agreement with Scott who provided further capital.

In 1817, James, along with his brother-in-law George Hogarth, purchased the Edinburgh Weekly Journal where he acted as editor.

[9] Following the death of John Ballantyne in 1821, Scott promoted James from manager to personal agent and partner.

While the company flourished, with business from both Scotland and England, and obtained a corner on printing legal stationery and official documents, debts continued to mount.

This left James with responsibility for half of the company's debt, forcing him to sell his family valuables and new home.

Scott publicly acknowledged his role in the business and used proceeds from his books to pay for the debts incurred.

James would proofread, point out inconsistencies in the text details, fix grammatical and punctuation errors, give the whole work a scrubbing and offer advice on language and style.

[13] Scott nicknamed both brothers, James and John, after characters in Henry Carey's burlesque Chrononhotonthologos.