Posts filed under 'clients'
August 17th, 2010
Last time out I may have sounded a little like the stern lecturer or a schoolmarm, admonishing self-publishing authors with my short list of “shoulds” for their success. But I return this time to make clear that working on self-publishing authors’ books beats working for traditional publishers in many ways.
That is not to say I never want to work for a traditional publisher, though by all accounts the traditional publishing model is in big trouble. I simply recognize the advantages of the streamlined self-publishing process.
Let me give you a for-instance.
A question about something I notice in a textfile I bring into the book document as I make pages can take days to get answered from a traditional publisher, as it makes its way from my contact person—usually a production editor or head of the design department—to the editor on the project and maybe even the author. Additionally, if some irregularity in the writing, something inconsistent with what the author did earlier, surfaces, it would not be out of the question for the structure of a traditional publisher to discourage my pointing it ut.
Working with a self-publisher, I always find myself and the author-client rowing in the same direction: doing whatever we can to make the best possible books, even if it means my commenting about a sudden change in the narrative voice, say. The best thing, overall, however, is the expeditious process for asking questions and receiving answers. As little a thing as this may sound like, quick, clear communication again makes any project a better experience and a good book more likely.
April 18th, 2010
I enjoyed the initial design and layout of my first medical novel. Although only the first pass is complete, with corrections and changes sure to come, the best part of the creative bump is likely over. I had begun two other books while working on that novel. And I fielded other inquiries in a typical “feast” portion of the feast-or-famine freelancer’s way.
One of the other possible projects was a 500-page scifi novel. This was another potentially interesting project, though I cannot imagine it would have had as many different text elements as the medical novel. But that has led me to thinking in a different, if not new, direction: eBooks.
I’ve already gone on some about how my first exercises with the epub and mobi formats left me underwhelmed. But those, it occurred to me, don’t even scratch the surface of what a proper eBook might be. Naturally, it took the iPad—no, I have not purchased one yet, as I’m waiting for second generation, which, at the least, I expect to include a video camera—to get me thinking about the extended possibilities of eBooks.
By “extended,” I picture the ability, while reading, say, a science fiction novel about time travel, to link to material about what physics says about the possibility of traveling through time. I am not sure whether I want multimedia to be part of the material one can access, as it could distract from the reading and might make a book into more of a movie experience over time. But I also like the idea of having other material available to move on to for more information when the reader’s imagination is piqued.
As it happened, this science fiction novel didn’t happen for me. I could not agree on a price with the prospective client. I understood perfectly the financial constraints he found himself bound by, but I could not bring the project in for what he could spend. And, interestingly, that price included the cost of proofreading. I wonder whether, whatever the price, it is a good idea for the same one pair of eyes to handle the typesetting and proofreading?
November 30th, 2009
A week or so ago I finished work on a book for a self-publisher, Jen Hall. The book, Success Is Simply Spiritual, is more than a simple self-help book, but a kind of treatise on achieving one’s dreams. And for that I highly recommend it to anyone looking to achieve things beyond the everyday “stuckness” we all occasionally find ourselves in.
But that is not the point I view this particular book from right now. I have worked on design-and-layout projects for self-publishing authors before. It happens, however, that Jen lives and is based in Australia. Hers was my first book for a client outside the U.S.
I had always wondered about issues like coordinating payment originating in non-U.S. currency—and also, frankly, about dealing with another layer of detail should there be any problem with timely payment. Well, of course, there was no problem. My pre-work conversations with Jen revealed a person—never mind an author and publisher—of the highest integrity; also someone who knew what she wanted and was very easy to work with.
So the project went off without a hitch and I await my copies of the book to inspect my handiwork and read it through as a book and not a “project”. But it wasn’t until the other night, reading Shel Israel’s insightful work, Twitterville, that it occurred to me: I’ve now gone global!
All the more remarkable when I think of how I reached this point. After resisting social media—Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter among them—on a whim, I engaged in Twitter nearly a year-and-a-half ago. Like many people who formed their opinion without actually trying it, I wondered why I should be interested in what someone I’d never met was doing or where they were. More to the point, I wondered who the hell would give a rat’s ass what I was up to.
Well, by superstar standards, I have a modest number of followers, a few over 1,800 and I’ve topped out at following just over 2,000 people. But within those numbers I’ve had some pretty meaningful exchanges—as well as some not-so-meaningful that were just fun—and made contacts or cultivated existing contacts to the tune of three books so far.
In Twitterville Shel describes the forming of bonds that can create a global clientele among people who will otherwise never actually sit in each other’s presence—except perhaps via the kick of videoconferencing (which I utilized with Jen and her copy editor). So now that I’ve gotten to that part of the year where I market myself to publishers in what seems almost like a horse-and-buggy method, email, looking for next year’s work, I am rethinking how far to cast my net.
Truly it is a remarkable time to be alive and a hoot of a way to conduct business.
November 17th, 2009
Maybe my perspective as a book designer skews my vision but I cannot imagine a scenario in which a self-publisher—someone seeking to publish a book he or she has written—would want anything but first-rate, professional book design and production.
The way I see it, “one-size-fits-all” solutions for turning out book covers and interiors do not provide the care and attention that any book crafted for publication deserves. Unfortunately, the process of publishing a book after it’s been written incurs expenses—editing, design, (occasionally) illustration, and production—that add up. That is, when the parts of the process are performed by competent professionals.
Not every self-publisher thinks to work that way, however.
Don’t get me wrong, I realize that exorbitant fees are the last thing a small business needs. Publishing has already turned into a cutthroat business, where large booksellers (both online and brick-and-mortar) have largely succeeded in marginalizing small bookstores. So there are more than a few reasons why making and selling books, especially to turn a profit, is not a pursuit for the faint-hearted.
Let me be clear: No book is guaranteed to earn a boatload of fast bucks. The only chance I see at making serious money is by writing really well on a subject that has an audience. Do your research seriously, locating a natural audience for your book. Create a plan for how you will reach that audience. Then consider the next layer of probable readers and how to reach that group.
Next engage the professionals I keep mentioning …
A real editor. Make no mistake: a new set of eyes is the way to go when checking over your writing. (For proofreading, too.) A designer who understands your book and its audience is your new best friend. Seek out a book designer who can tell you that his or her work is about your book, not his or her reputation. You want someone who understands the cover is not just for looking good and drawing attention, but for making a promise about what readers will find inside; and a typesetter who implements that design exactly. I think it is preferable for the designer to double as typesetter.
Give your book every chance to succeed.
October 30th, 2009
Jen,
I had an epiphany while I was running earlier this morning. I’ve blogged and spoken many times about how a book designer’s compact is to bring the author’s words to readers and pretty much get out of the way after that. Yes, to greater and lesser degrees we all, especially cover designers, try to make art and leave a little of ourselves on each book, so’s when we take credit—and we will take credit—it means something.
But somewhere in the beginning of my run, I heard myself thinking, “It’s her dream.” And then, to underscore that I had “heard” right, R.E.M. began playing “Losing My Religion” on my iPod, which—curiously, although it made sense to me then—struck me as some kind of “sign” that I was definitely on the right track.
So, although I take my part seriously as the book’s designer and layout artist, I remember that we all have dreams and we are pretty sure we know how those dreams look. When others try to change the look, those dreams may cease to be ours. Success Is Strictly Spiritual is your dream.
I already told you why I think certain things should look a certain way. Briefly …
Page openers are supposed to stand out from “regular” pages. If the recto running head is the same as the chapter title, well, it is true that the chapter title is already there at the top of the page, just below the running head with the same chapter title. I still think that one may be a little overkill. But with a running foot, they’re not right on top of each other, though I still think it’s unnecessary. The drop folio, however, after thinking about it, is something I like—and habit is a bad reason to not have a regular folio if that is what you want.
Same thing goes for pages with only the diagrams on them: if you want the runners and regular folios on them, you can have them.
The only thing I remain steadfast against is the runner and any kind of folio on a blank page. It would be different if you had a head such as “Reader’s Notes” on the page. But totally bare and I think you risk confusing the reader, who just might wonder whether something went wrong in the printing process and material that should be on the page somehow got omitted.
So only this last one seems to really matter. Look at the redone pages when I send them and decide whether you still want any of the above changes.
Thanks.
Steve
May 30th, 2007
I found myself taking a long, hard look the other day at the issue of just what kind of books I help into print after finishing layout on the sixth over the last year or so of a string of World War II histories. Interestingly, they were punctuated somewhere in the middle by a page design and layout project, an illustrated children’s storybook.
Four of the seven World War II histories, all of which are—or are to be—published by Stackpole Books, relate details from the German side of things. Not making the case for the Nazis being the white hats during World War II or anything like that, but, rather, narrating the particulars. Seeing the book in print made me look at it as more than just my work.
The first book, Exit Rommel, tells the story of the Desert Fox and his Tunisian campaign. Eagles of the Third Reich chronicles the story of the Nazi struggle for air supremacy during the war. German Order of Battle, Volumes 2 and 3—somehow Volume 1 escaped me—lists and describes all the various battalions and fighter groups of the German military during World War II.
The eye-opener came when I found myself thinking again how Field Marshall Erwin Rommel did not seem to be the monster we know all Nazis to be. I thought again about how Rommel got into trouble pausing the fight in North Africa to allow the Allies to remove their wounded from the field of battle. And how he was forced to commit suicide—as opposed to his other choice, execution—for participating in a failed plot to assassinate the Fuhrer. My recitation of Rommel’s merits were not greeted warmly.
This led me to thinking about whether there were books I should feel obligated to not help toward publication. Is there such an obligation? Is there some equivalent to the example of falsely yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater?
I’m loathe to say someone’s freedom of speech needs to be limited. But I guess I can reasonably draw the line at books that advocate cruelty to children, say, or how to cover up a murder. On the other hand, I probably do not want to include novels that tell such stories on my “Don’t Touch” list.
This whole argument still makes me uneasy as hell.
