Meet our Head of Sales, Richard Lambert

With over 35 years of experience in printing, our Head of Sales, Richard Lambert, is ready to assist you in producing the very finest books.

Learn more about Richard
Deep expertise in specialist roles

Richard Lambert, the Head of Sales at The Amadeus Press, brings decades of experience and a passion for print to every project. His journey in the printing industry began in 1987, leading him through roles in production, quality control, and sales. Richard’s deep expertise in pre-press and repro services eventually brought him to The Amadeus Press, where he now oversees sales for book and magazine printing, particularly for clients in historical transport and modelling.

Your trusted and enthusiastic partner

With a commitment to hands-on, personalised service, Richard ensures that each customer’s needs are met with care and precision. Whether it’s helping clients choose the best printing options or guiding them through potential challenges, Richard’s approach is rooted in understanding and collaboration. His enthusiasm for historical transport, especially railways, adds a unique touch to his work, making him a trusted partner for publishers and societies alike.

Head of Sales Richard Lambert

Get to know Richard Lambert

I started in print in 1987 at Interprint in Harrogate, in a production and quality control role.  At that time we mainly printed simple leaflets, flyers, mailers, and postcards there.

I quickly specialised in the pre-press/repro aspect, and spent many subsequent years at various different companies within that industry, initially in production role and latterly in a sales role – until Apple Mackintosh computers and DTP (desktop publishing) just about killed off that industry in the late 90’s – at which point I went back into the general printing industry, in a sales role.

Before it died out completely though, I was supplying repro services (scans and film separations etc) to Amadeus Press (and their parent company, Hart & Clough) which is how I got to know them.

In 2012 the Sales Director of the parent company Hart and Clough retired – and I was approached by them to join the company then, in a sales role for that side of the Company, which handled commercial print – leaflets, brochures and packaging etc for marketing and general use.

Then at the end of 2014 Amadeus Press’ Sales Director also retired, so I took over sales for that side of the business too – mainly books and magazines etc, particularly for publishers and societies with interest in historical transport and the modelling of it.  So I have been talking railway magazines and books for almost exactly ten years now!

Meeting interesting people within publishers and societies, working closely with them in the design and production of their books and magazines – and learning more about their own particular area of interest while so doing.

Historical transport – particularly railways – is very much an interest of my own, so every new project is a pleasure to work on.  But I am now also becoming quite knowledgeable about buses, trams, ships and steam traction engines too!   It’s just a bit of a shame that we don’t seem to print many books about aeroplanes though…

We continue to offer much more of a good old-fashioned hands-on personal service – and we try to make a virtue of that!

And we have a very “open door” policy, encouraging clients to come in and discuss their thoughts and plans here with us, and even watch their books being printed too.  You can’t do any of that when you are getting your book printed in China!

We would usually start with a meeting – either on the client’s premises or here – and spend time discussing exactly what a client has in mind. 

We would examine the quality of their proposed pictures (if the book involved that) and ensure that they are good enough to produce a good end result.

Often we will produce proofs from a few sample text pages as an initial test, to ensure that the client is happy with what they will eventually see in the finished book.

Just before we get ready to print the book we like to run one final almost “WYSIWYG” (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) mocked-up hardcopy proof of the whole book on our digital printing press, using the exact same papers etc as will be used in the final finished bulk-printed book.  This gives a client one last good chance to assess exactly how their finished book will look and feel, and to be happy that everything is as they want it to be.

And we actively encourage clients to visit here to see their book finally being actually printed which (as well as being a chance to see and approve the finished print coming off the presses) is usually an interesting an informative morning out for them, and provides some great photo-opportunities for use in publicising their upcoming book on their social media etc.

Everything is overseen here by my team of experienced colleagues and I – so really there are no glaring gaps in the system which might allow for something to end up being any kind of unpleasant surprise, on delivery of the finished item.

We can certainly offer various options of size, format and style – both in full colour and b/w.

Most books can be produced either as softback or casebound – and there are some significant pros and cons for both of those, which we can discuss.

We have hundreds of different sample books here to show clients, to help ascertain exactly what sort of book would be suitable for them.

We can produce books in quantities of several thousand, which brings the unit cost of each book down – or just 50 or 100 copies, which brings the overall cost of the whole project down. 

We are happy to provide quotes for various different quantity options in various styles, which can help a client to finally decide exactly which combination makes their project achievable and cost-effective.

Sometimes it is just knowing “where to start” once they have written their book.

I would say that one of the most important things initially is to work out exactly how many copies of their book they are going to need.  Some clients just want to produce a family history book to give to immediate friends and family – so they have a good idea how many they will need, and that might only be a dozen copies. 

Most will look to sell their books, so need to have a fairly accurate idea of exactly how many they will sell within a year or so, and order only that exact quantity – no more and no less.  A fully functioning “crystal ball” would be the best way of getting to that figure – but in the absence of that, a bit of diligent market research comes a very close second!

We do need to find new clients, in all the areas that our clients come from – so that’s publishers big and small, individual self-publishing authors, and historical transport and modelling societies.

Historically most of our publishing clients have been “of a certain age” and during this last couple of years we have seen several retire, and therefore cease to publish any further new books.

Over the last 20 years we have seen the quantities of books being printed drop from numbers like 10,000 or more 30 years ago, to maybe only 1,000 or so at most these days.  Many books (even big posh casebound books) are only produced in quantities of a few hundred now. 

I can see this trend continuing, so we have recently introduced digital printing machinery a few years ago, which allow us to economically produce books in very low numbers (from a single copy, up to a couple of hundred copies) and we will continue to look at equipment and techniques in that arena which allow us to expand that very-low-quantity offering.

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