Examples and Costs
 ook
design costs will depend on the amount of work involved. Some
designers and publish-on-demand services require you to select one of
two or three set-price packages where you will be required to pay the
set price even if it takes much less time to complete the work than the
price justifies. If the work begins to exceed the price,
either corners will be cut, or you will be asked to pay more.
Some
designers will, as normal practice or at the request of their client,
provide a fixed quote. The quote will likely be a little higher than a
best-guess estimate in order to cover unexpected work. Again, if
the work begins to exceed the price,
either corners will be cut, or you will be asked to pay more.
We operate differently. We will provide you with an
estimate of the upper limit of what we expect the cost will be. 90% of
the time, the upper limit is not reached. Only occassionally when the
client requests more work than initially submitted will costs exceed
the upper limit. If, for some reason, production costs appear to be
heading higher than my initial estimate, we will let you know as soon as
it starts to become apparent to us.
You will be charged only for the work that is
done. On an ongoing basis, you will be provided with billing summaries
reflecting the costs as the job proceeds. Our billing rate is $75/hr.
 esign and layout
of text pages for a standard novel with relatively simple chapter pages
may take only a few hours to complete. The time involved
increases when we add sub-titles, lists, fancy chapter pages, tables
and charts, and photos.
 over
costs will depend on whether or not cover images are supplied, how much
work is required to modify the images, complexity of the front and back
cover design, and so on.
 ost
authors and publishers find that the extra time spent to make their
book look good is well worth it. If you hope to sell your book,
it should look at least as good as, if not better, than the best books
it will be competing with. Readers will want your book for its contents
but, like a good meal, it must look appetizing enough to entice the
diner to have that first taste.
 xamples
below assume all editing has been completed before your manuscript
arrives, and your proofing of drafts will require only a few changes to
be made. The costs may seem low, but
you can be assured that the quality of the work is of the highest
standards. Years of experience and good tools make the work easy and
efficient (and fun for me!).
|
