Interview with a Publisher: Richard Mayers (Burton Mayers Books)
"Get friendly with indie books stores, get credentialed, and market yourself as an author people want to read."
In today’s interview, Richard Mayers of Burton Mayers Books shares some fascinating insights into the world of independent publishing. If you’re an author hoping to publish a book in the near or distant future, this one’s a must-read.
So Richard, tell me a little about yourself.
I’m a complete nomad with no fixed abode. I now live in Dundee, Scotland, having some Scottish roots from my mother’s side, but I’ve lived all over the place: Devon, Surrey, London, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire.
I have a background in media; my degree is from Bournemouth University and many of my course-mates have the accolade of working on some of the best TV shows on BBC and ITV – even a few Netflix dramas. I’m not quite sure how, but I ended up being a Media Studies teacher and have been doing that for nearly 20 years.
My love for books and storytelling has never disappeared and that’s why, in 2008 after teaching English for a few years, I decided that it was time to go back to my childhood dream of being a writer and begin publishing fiction. The rest is history.
What's your all-time favourite novel?
That’s a tough question. I’ve always prided myself on being able to read a range of books by different authors, without prejudice.
I grew up loving Roald Dahl and then suddenly switched to Stephen King, because that’s what my older brothers were reading. I loved his writing style and the darkness of all his tales, and some of his works have made excellent films. However, it was teaching English to 11-12 years olds where I saw how a book can inspire and captivate readers.
Skellig, by David Almond, is a very simple, straightforward children’s book which I’ve used again and again in class, and even with my own children. I think I like its simplicity, pace and the themes embedded within it, and it’s a story I can happily read again and again to remind myself that writing doesn’t have to be some colossal, clever, uniquely original work of art: it should just satisfy our need for a good story and a chance to pass the time and escape into another world.
What's the story behind Burton Mayer Books?
I partnered with an old school friend, John Burton, who was an illustrator and designer to create a children’s book. We did everything that people (people being agents/publishers) said not to do, including writing a story about animals for YA and producing artwork and sketches for a book which might narrow your appeal to publishers and agents looking for new authors.
That said, we drummed up quite a lot of interest – I had the experience of working in schools, networking with librarians, and researching some really interesting scifi concepts; John was a talented copyrighter/designer who also had some ground-breaking ideas.
Still being relatively young, we thought we had a unique and original product and the initial response from publishers and agents was encouraging when we began seeking representation, even getting a direct request from a commissioning editor from a very big publisher.
But… after the waiting process, and some replies that read like: we really like the concept but don’t think there’s a market for it… we began to get restless.
John wanted to move into teaching (mad, crazy guy) and I wanted to work on other projects. We decided to self-publish and used our skills to do so; I found a distributor and we produced a really nice product that everyone said was ‘just like a real book’. We laughed, because it was as good in terms of quality and feel to any other product on the market. I did want something metallic in the cover but we were limited by our budget, ploughing lots of time and our own money into the project.
Afterwards, we agreed to keep the publisher logo and name going, Burton Mayers. So that’s how the publishing company was born. We took on a few more projects initially after, including an interesting vampire novel, and I wrote a prequel to Spikez, but once we were both progressing with teaching, the energy and time spent on book publishing dwindled.
It was only in 2019 that I kick-started everything up again, and then covid hit. Suddenly I found myself at home with time outside the classroom, so I ploughed my efforts into building a website and coming up with a business model that would allow me to support authors who were about to go through some stuff after failing to get hooked by an agent or taken on by a traditional publisher.
What’s that random Kevin Costner film quote? If you build it, they will come… Well, slowly the queries started coming in. Many of the authors liked my approach to publishing and it’s grown from there, to where we are today with over 50 titles and growing.
I’m proud to say I’m an independent publisher and have great books to back this up.
What does a publisher's day-to-day look like?
I guess what I do will be different to bigger independent publishers or the big guns, however the process is similar.
I will review a query and take time to respond. My reply rate has gone down a bit as I still juggle teaching with publishing, however if I like something I tend to make a plan with an author and get them to send regular chunks of their manuscript to read and comment on (I don’t like to edit, if I do find myself editing too much then the project is not ready for publication).
I’ll start coming up with ideas for a cover, help build a strategy, and then look at publication dates. Timescales vary – I’m effectively a one-man band now that John works in teaching, and because of all my other commitments (I have a small-holding) projects can take anything from 3 or 4 months to a year to produce.
Other than that, it’s really not that exciting, especially as I tend to do most of my work in the wee hours.
And what exactly do you look for in a submission? What makes you say "yes"?
I guess story is the most important aspect for me. Is there a good story worth sharing in this extract? Will it inspire or engage their target reader? As I mentioned earlier, I don’t really refuse to look at submissions, but if I get something that perhaps seems quite specialist I might suggest they find someone who has published something similar or has a catalogue of similar books; similarly, if I find something a bit too offensive or odd, I will kindly pass.
I remember a couple of authors submitting some stuff which had promise, but when I read it it soon became quite sexually explicit or a bit too personal reflective, and I thought to myself, ‘do I really want to publish this kind of stuff? Would anyone really want to buy this book?’.
Equally, if a book is riddled with punctuation issues I will tend to stop reading as I don’t have the time to do so much proofreading like I used to, even if the story is great. I’ve learnt from experience on that one.
I like work that is polished and has been road-tested or offered to a range of readers because it’s already been refined. If an author says it’s been proof-read or gone through some rigour, then that’s positive. Some of my existing authors use this knowledge of how we worked together to effectively get a free pass for their next book if I know the standards have been met.
A good five-line hook, or a catchy synopsis also help; if the writing is a little off, we can work on that if the will is there.
Do you have any upcoming titles in the works?
I have loads and I don’t know how it keeps happening. At the start of each year I anticipate how many titles I expect to publish and order maybe one set of 10 ISBNs, then by the middle of the year I find that I’ve committed all of these and need to invest in more.
I have been averaging about 12-15 titles a year, and because I build relationships with my authors they tend to come back to me with follow up books or more in the series they are writing, so it will end up being more eventually. We’re growing.
What's been your biggest challenge as a publisher?
My biggest challenge is trying to make publishing financially viable. I publish because I’m passionate about it and love seeing good stories get out into the public domain, but it’s really competitive to get good books widely distributable and as such I’m often out of pocket as the book doesn’t sell as well as expected, so I don’t recuperate my costs, or because I’m having to invest all profits back into the business, e.g. Nielsen’s enhanced service, or invest in Adobe creative suite.
I’ve just done my tax returns and reported another loss – however, I just have to brush this off as lessons learnt. I do tell all my authors that this is a marathon and not a sprint. Any author expecting a best-seller and overnight success from an indie title (it’s not impossible) is being unrealistic.
It takes hard graft and effort to make sales, and even authors throwing money at online advertising sites, social media, etc. on the promise of sales absolutely pains me because that ship has sailed and it rarely works out for them. Get friendly with indie books stores, get credentialed and market yourself as an author people want to read.
Where can people find you online?
My website used to be a blog, but I set up a .com during 2020. BurtonMayersBooks.com is where they can read up more about us as a company and our ideology.
Do you have any big plans for the future?
I remain hopeful of some good news on the horizon; some of my early titles are starting to make progress, 3 or 4 years down the line. We’re talking adaptations into short films, comics and even translations. All of these things take us a step forward towards achieving our goal.
Ultimately, it would be lovely to hang up my teaching robe and focus on publishing full time, especially when one of the titles really does start to make waves. I get sent loads of interesting events and book fairs to attend, and I just can’t! It’s frustrating but I know eventually that I will be able to do this.
Finally, can you share a golden nugget of advice for any authors hoping to get published?
I think my advice is to not stop. You’ll hit loads of obstacles and, if you are published either by the big guns or by a smaller publishing house, you can’t sit back and be complacent.
I’ve published some really excellent works of fiction and it pains me to see them get disheartened and almost stop trying to publicise their work once it’s in the public domain. It can be demoralising when they just stop trying to tell people about their story. Trying to sell a book, even to friends and family, is a real struggle and tests the will of the human spirit.
If you’re not published, then take on board advice. Alternatively, start writing the next book, you’ll be more experienced and may write a better book, and when you pitch that and say you’ve got other titles, you may well stoke more interest.
Thank you, Richard!
Coming right up…
This Thursday, paid subscribers will receive a piece from me focusing on how to create and maintain an evergreen content generation loop. It’s an approach I use all the time and I think you’ll find it useful.
And of course, at the weekend you can settle down with Saturday Morning Coffee Edition #6. ☕
Great story and great info. Thank.
Richard sounds like an upstanding literary citizen. Publishing despite taking the L financially must be so hard, yet here he is sharing his knowledge. Enjoyed the read.