The Tale of Tilbury

Tilbury House Publishers recently became an imprint of Cherry Lake Publishing, beginning a new phase of life for a publishing company that began in the 1970s. I got the chance to speak with Jonathan Eaton, who with his business partner Tris Coburn bought the company in 2013. At the time of the purchase, Tilbury had an extensive backlist of regional titles for adults, including well-regarded books about Maine history. The company had also published some groundbreaking children’s books, including Say Something by Peggy Moss.

Jon recalls, “We learned at the New England Independent Booksellers Association conference in October 2012 that Tilbury House was for sale. We knew and respected the imprint. I knew Jennifer Bunting, the publisher, from her days as managing editor of WoodenBoat Magazine years ago. Tris and I were eager to build something, and we thought acquiring Tilbury House would help us do it.”

Both men had a publishing background – Tris at Simon & Schuster and Jon at McGraw-Hill, so they knew what they were getting in to. Or did they? “It’s one of those adventures like renovating a house while you try to live in it. If we’d known what we were getting into, we probably wouldn’t have done it,” Jon says. “Or maybe we would have—naïve optimism is a powerful force.”

They purchased the company from its owner, Neal Rolde, and soon moved the company from Gardiner, Maine, to Thomaston, Maine, setting up the office not far from Jon’s home (Tris lived just a couple of towns over), and close to that publishing essential, a good coffee shop. Three titles were slated for publication in 2013: E.B. White on Dogs, an anthology of the writer’s canine-related essays assembled by his granddaughter Martha, and two nature picture books, The Secret Pool and The Eye of the Whale. Picture books accounted for 40 percent of sales.

 The Secret Pool, which received a Kirkus Star and the Lupine Award from the Maine Library Association, bridged the transition between former and new management at Tilbury House.

 

 

The books did well, which was encouraging, and backlist titles contributed to the coffers. Steve Kowit’s In the Palm of Your Hand: A Poet’s Portable Workshop, for example, has sold over 100,000 copies and continues to sell year after year.

Yet the publishing industry is not predictable, unlike other businesses, and the first few years were challenging. “Cash flow kept me awake at night,” says Jon. “There wasn’t enough money coming in to cover overhead. [Tris and I] had to make annual contributions from our retirement savings in the first few years.” Fortunately, the former owner was willing to provide them with owner financing. “Eventually we were able to obtain bank financing but had to secure it with personal guarantees that put our homes at risk.”

Scary? You bet. “Publishing is an absurd business from a cash-flow point of view—all the investments in a book have to be made before any money starts to come in, and the national accounts demand extended payment terms. The cart is perpetually ahead of the horse. Which is probably why Tilbury House had no new titles in the pipeline after 2013—a fact that failed to register with Tris and me before we made the purchase.”

There was much to be done, and quickly. “We urgently needed to sign new titles, to build the frontlist and backlist. We needed to secure national distribution.” At the time, Tilbury House was distributing from its own warehouse and lacked the order volume to absorb the overhead. “We needed to hone our identity—to decide what our mission was and figure out how to support that. We had to build the boat while learning to sail it.”

Jon credits Bunting and children’s book editor Audrey Maynard with providing a strong backlist. He says they “showed us that there was an underserved audience for message-driven picture books. As years passed, this became more and more our focus.”

In addition, Jon extended the list to science and nature titles – as predicted by those two picture books released in 2013. Trained as an oceanographer, Jon enjoyed finding manuscripts that would share with children the joy they can find in the natural world.

The science/nature and message-driven books have succeeded and carried the company through what Jon calls “the thousand cuts of publishing”—those unexpected setbacks that range from a printer going bust and leaving a frontlist title unbound to negative reviews by critics who don’t get what a book is trying to do.

As he prepares for retirement, Jon is proud of what they’ve accomplished. “We succeeded against the odds, which were stacked against us more than we realized in 2013. We managed to build the boat while sailing it. We never missed payroll. And we’ve published books we—and our authors and illustrators—can be proud of.”  The children’s list has earned starred reviews, national awards (including a Coretta Scott King honor for Magnificent Homespun Brown, written by Maine’s own Samara Cole Doyon), selections to many best-of annual lists, classroom adoptions, and ongoing backlist impact. “We did this from midcoast Maine!” Jon says. The titles are now nationally distributed through W.W. Norton.  Ellen Myrick and her staff at Myrick Marketing & Media handle school/library marketing representation.

 

After Magnificent Homespun Brown received a Coretta Scott King Honor, the number of submissions Tilbury received skyrocketed!
 

 Tilbury sold its adult list to Rowman & Littlefield in 2022, and the children’s list is now an imprint of Cherry Lake Publishing. “The Tilbury House imprint name will continue. It’s the best possible outcome and a source of great satisfaction. We’ve built something lasting and good! I’m working with the experienced editors at Sleeping Bear Press, our sister children’s imprint in Cherry Lake, to ensure a smooth assimilation of the Tilbury House list with its personality intact,” Jon says.

 “Empowering, affirming, challenging, comforting children’s books will always be a worthy mission. There will always be new stories to tell and new ways to tell them. There will always be a need.”

To learn more about Tilbury House and see the books they’ve published, visit www.tilburyhouse.com.