In today's interview, we get an insight into indie publishing as we chat with Nicci Robinson of Butterworth Books. Read on to find out more about this queer publishing house and how it began, as well as the rewards and challenges of running a community interest company.
Thank you for joining us, Nicci! Could you start by introducing yourself?
Sure, I’m Nicci Robinson, and I run Global Wordsmiths and Butterworth Books with my wife, Victoria Villaseñor. I also write sapphic fiction under the pen names Robyn Nyx (thrillers), RJ Nyx (sci-fi), and Helena Harte (contemporary romance).
Tell us about Butterworth Books and how the publishing house came to be.
Butterworth Books is a different breed of publishing house. It’s a home for indie authors who take great pride in their work and produce top quality books for readers who deserve the best. It came about as an extension of the community work we do as Global Wordsmiths. Victoria has been an editor for nearly twenty years, and I’ve been editing for almost ten. We’ve both been traditionally published, and we wanted to put our knowledge into use for the writers we work with. We run international writing retreats and courses, and we’ve built a community of authors who support each other along their writing journeys, so it made sense to provide a home for those authors to publish their stories with a commitment to being the best author they can be, producing the best books they can. Butterworth was my grandmother’s maiden name, and I wanted to honor that in some way. I like to think that she’d be proud of what we’ve all achieved.
What made you decide to work with queer and indie authors in particular?
To put it simply, they’re our people. We wanted to focus Butterworth Books on supporting queer creatives because we already face many barriers in our lives, and the LGBTQ community is where our hearts are. We work with people we’ve developed friendships with—it isn’t a business, it’s a family.
Some authors may be reserved when it comes to paying out the fees needed for your services. How do the benefits outweigh the costs, and what separates you from a vanity publisher?
Great question! Global Wordsmiths and Butterworth Books are separate entities. Butterworth Books is about quality for indie authors. Essentially, anyone who publishes under that label is telling readers they’ve done the work to make it a great book.
Through Global Wordsmiths, they go through the whole editing process, from content editing to proofing, to make the book as good as it can be. We work with quite a few authors through Global Wordsmiths, not all of whom are Butterworth authors.
No one pays to be a Butterworth Books author, and we don’t take any royalties. They retain all their rights, too. They’re fully indie, but with the label that shows they’re part of a house that puts out quality books. Additionally, some of our authors use services external to us for cover design, for example. So there are no fees when it comes to being a Butterworth Books author.
Using our services at Globals Wordsmiths is no different from paying anyone else to edit for you, or design your covers, or market your work. We can do all that and help you publish with traditional publishers or go self-published, just like many other companies out there.
Vanity publishers take your money and put out the product regardless of quality, often charging a fortune to do so and giving you very little in return. They also often take royalties and can take your rights, leaving you in the lurch. We think it’s so incredibly important for writers to retain control of their work and to have a great team to help them through the process. That’s what we’re all about.
We’re set up as a CIC (community interest company) because our focus is on people not money; an example of how we do that is by providing free coaching scholarships. We work with writers to go from an idea to a full draft and hopefully to publication (depending on whether they want to traditionally publish or go indie, because those writers don’t necessarily go on to publish with Butterworth Books).
We’re earning a living as editors and designers through our Global Wordsmiths work, and Butterworth Books is all about our community, both authors and readers, and we’re committed to quality books worthy of our wonderful readers.
We’d love to know more about the authors and books you’ve published so far! Who should the Swords & Sapphics community have their eye on at the moment?
We’ve got ten authors, plus our own pen names, and we’ve helped to publish nearly twenty books as well as publishing our own. They write across many genres, including fantasy, historical, thrillers, and romance! Swords & Sapphics readers might want to check out Valden Bush’s Nero (with the second book in the works), AJ Mason’s The Helion Band, and Brey Willows' fantasy books, as well as Changing Course. And of course, there’s lots more romance and badassery to be had! Everyone is listed on the Butterworth’s website.
This summer, you set up an LGBTQ+ book festival in Nottingham that sold out. We’d love to know more about this! Why is building a community important to you?
That was the fourth time we’d run Queer the Shelves in Nottingham, UK (and Victoria ran a book festival for Bold Strokes Books for eleven years before that). So, for fifteen years, we’ve been bringing LGBTQ+ authors together! That feels so wonderfully surreal. They’re always wonderful weekends/days full of fun and laughter. People have found their new best friends and their forever partners there, and you’ll find so many blogs out there from people who have attended and got an incredible sense of community from it. These events get readers and authors together and build lifelong relationships, and the importance of that can’t be underestimated. At the June event in 2024, we had over twenty authors, narrators, and artists from all sections of the community doing panels and readings and generally connecting with readers. It was awesome, as it is every year, and we can’t wait to do it again in 2025.
I’ve always worked in the voluntary sector; helping people and communities has always been important to me. Isolation is a killer, literally, and writing is a very solitary occupation, so being in a like-minded, supportive community is doubly important. It’s an honor for us to facilitate and be part of that.
You also publish a yearly Sapphfic Eclectic anthology. Tell us more about this!
Part of our commitment to our community is helping get new authors and voices out there to find their readers. SapphFic Eclectic is all about showcasing new and emerging authors as well as being a thank you to our amazing reader community. (Sometimes we slip in a few well-known authors, too.) We produce the anthology totally free of charge in an effort to help readers find new favorites and for new authors to gain confidence in their writing. Words hold so much power, and publishing something so positive like this is absolutely essential for our continued march toward total freedom and equality for all the world over, especially in light of the recent US election results.
Going forward, what genre would you love to publish more of and why?
We’re very happy with what our authors are producing right now. We don’t dictate what genre the authors write in—we’ve published literary fiction, memoir, and contemporary romance to name a few—and we’re all about supporting the authors to write the stories they want to. Helping writers write the stories they feel inspired to put down is always so much fun. In 2025, we’ve got a sapphic steampunk, a sci-fi travel trilogy, and several romances coming out.
And is there any representation you’d love to see more of in your catalogue?
It’s really important to us that the authors write what they feel compelled to write. Our two new authors are from the BIPOC community, and we’re looking forward to getting their books out into the world. On a wider note, the more varied the representation we can achieve as a community of authors and publishers the better. Representation and seeing ourselves within the pages of books as positive characters is vital to developing a healthy view of oneself.
As a publisher, editor, and writer yourself, what is your favorite part about the process, and what is the biggest challenge you face?
Time is the biggest challenge. It’s a slippery mistress, and there’s never enough of it. I regularly do eighteen-hour days to fit in all three of those aspects of my life, and sometimes, I hit the wall and have to take a break for a couple of days to recharge. But I work with a lot of lovely people, and I meet oodles of wonderful people at events and via social media, so I plug in and get back to it as soon as I can.
My favorite part of everything I do within the publishing industry (designing, marketing, editing, etc.) is seeing authors realize their dreams. The moment they hold the very first copy of their very first book in their hands is something very special, and I never take it for granted. It really is a privilege.
My favorite part of writing? All of it! I love the creation, the planning, the writing, the marketing, the design, meeting readers—I really couldn’t give you a favorite, other than whatever I’m doing at the time is my favorite thing. I love that I get to play with words all day, every day.
Do you have a main objective for Butterworth Books and its authors? What are your dream achievements?
Just creating the publishing house itself was a dream achievement. We want to stay small and beautiful; we have no plans to take over the world or grow further. We want to be able to support our existing authors 100%, and that ability would decrease if we took on more authors. Helping indie authors make their dreams come true while also retaining control of their work is a huge thing, and we want to keep doing it for as long as we can.
We love to boost authors that may be struggling to find a spotlight. Which Butterworth books do you hope more readers will connect with in the future?
All indie authors need the spotlight, and I couldn’t possibly put one author forward ahead of anyone else. It can be really difficult for indie authors to get noticed, especially with all the great books in the market right now. I’d encourage you to look at our catalogue and then dig around on those authors who take your fancy. All of our authors deserve to be widely read! If you like a particular genre, we probably have an author who has written something in it!
Do you have any advice for indie authors who hope to be published with you? What do you look for when seeking new talent?
We’re not that kind of publisher—the only time we encourage submissions is for our annual anthology. Butterworth Books is an extension of our writing community, built through relationships established and developed at our Global Wordsmiths writing retreats and through our courses. We love when people come on retreats and work with us so we can get to know them! If people would like to book onto a writing retreat (a fantastic time full of laughter, writing workshops, time to hang out, and great food), that info can be found on our Hatchery page at Global Wordsmiths.
In terms of authors looking for traditional publishers, I’d say do your homework. Don’t submit your dinosaur YA adventure to a publisher who only prints regency romances. Look at the books already out there you wished you’d written and find out who publishes them. Make sure you’re a good fit and convince them why that’s the case. And never give up!
As readers, how can we best support small presses and indie authors going forward to ensure they stay on the radar?
Just keep reading! And reviewing/starring books is a huge thing for authors too, especially on Amazon because consumers often look to the reviews to make their purchasing choices. Searching out new authors is great, and then sharing that love with social media groups is huge, as it can help other people find those authors too.
What might we expect from Butterworth Books in 2025? More festivals, books, and new authors, we hope!
We’ve got two new authors releasing their debut novels in the first half of the year, plus we’ve got many more coming from our current authors, and we’ll be delivering our Queer the Shelves festival again on June 28th in Nottingham (tickets will go on sale in the new year). We also hope to have a strong presence at the 2025 GCLS Conference in Albany, and we’d LOVE to meet up with readers and authors!
Our podcast focuses on media we’re currently loving. Are there any books, shows, movies, or games you’re enjoying at the moment? Any recommendations for our audience? Bonus points if it includes sapphics!
We’re enjoying Heartstopper at the moment. We’re latecomers to the show but it’s a wonderful feel-good balance to the Criminal Minds and Dead to Me episodes! And we’re just getting into Agatha All Along and are enjoying the sapphic undertones.
About Nicci & Victoria
Nicci Robinson lives in England but enjoys traveling all over the world in search of writerly inspiration. She loves to create complex characters to weave into stories exploring the darker side of human nature in the hope that we might cultivate the light, and she adores working with other writers to help them achieve their authory dreams. She lives in the UK with her author and editor wife, where they play with other people's words all day, every day.
Victoria Villaseñor has been an editor for two decades. She writes speculative fiction and loves working with aspiring authors to create worlds readers can escape to.
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