1. Use styles.

Styles have been a feature of Microsoft Word for as long as I can remember. Yet I rarely encounter anyone who uses them. Honestly, they will make your life so much easier! Styles are a set of formatting commands that apply to different types of text in a document—level 1 heading, level 2 heading, body text, bullet text, etc. You apply a style to paragraphs [or characters], then define the formatting elements of the style. [Or vice versa], If you later decide, for example, that your level 1 heading should be Helvetica rather than Garamond, you simply change the style definition and all the paragraphs tagged with that style are changed at once. Styles from Word integrate with styles in InDesign.

2. Use colors to validate styles.

Make things easy on yourself and use color to quickly highlight any problem areas. Once you have set up styles, while you are still in the “construction” phase, apply a color to the style. [It doesn’t need to stay there – this is just part of your quality control process.] Often heading levels have subtle distinctions and it’s not always easy to spot them when they are all in black type. I do this when I get a manuscript and there are multiple heading levels with subtle distinctions. [And because my client doesn’t use styles, they are often inconsistent themselves in how they format the headings.] By tagging Heading 1 blue, Heading 2 green, Heading 3 violet, it’s much easier for my client to look at the manuscript – or just a table of contents extract – and say, no, this one should be heading 2 and that one should be heading 3.

3. Set up a project folder template.

All my book design projects have the same types of elements: text files, image files, layout files, review files, and administrative files. So I have set up a template folder that I can quickly copy and rename for a particular project, ready for me to fill with the particular files associated with that project.

4. Develop a file naming scheme—and use it consistently.

I use a prefix with my client’s initials, project number, project name, and then a suffix with the version number. Version 0 is always the initial design version; the 0 indicates that this is not a file to be carried forward as it often does not have current versions of the text or images.

Regardless of what filenames my clients may have given the image files, I add a prefix so they present in the order in which they will be placed in the book. So my client’s original image [obtained from the U.S. Library of Congress] was named 1s01828u.tif. I added the prefix 006- to indicate it’s the 6th image to be placed in the book. [Because there will be over 100 images, I use leading zeros so they display in order.] As I work through the image enhancement process, I add the suffixes –E [enhanced] and –bw [converted to grayscale]. After enhancing and converting I save it in its ready-to-place .png format. So the new file name is 006-1s01828u-E-bw.png.

5. Use colors to navigate more quickly to the current file.

In the midst of a project it is easy to mistakenly open the wrong file. Use your operating system’s ability to apply color to files and folders so you have a path to follow to make sure you select the current version of the file.

6. Set up headers/footers and slugs.

After two or three rounds of revisions involving two or three or more reviewers, it’s almost inevitable that someone is going to open or print out the wrong file version. Use headers or footers in Word or a slug placed in the gutter in InDesign with text variables that update automatically to show the file name, page number, and latest save date. Emphasize the difference between versions by applying a different color to each new version.

7. Use checklists.

The books I work on usually involved a lot of photos and it’s easy to lose track of which photos are ready to place, which still need work, which are unusable, etc. But with a checklist, I can work through the photos systematically with a minimum of fuss because I can see where I left off and what is yet to be done.

There are many other types of checklists that I use on various projects and there most certainly are checklists I haven’t yet thought about yet.

One of my mantras is “think once, execute many times.” By spending a little time up front to develop systems, procedures, and forms, a lot of the confusion and frustration caused by administrative mix-ups is eliminated and we are free to concentrate on the more interesting and rewarding work we love as book designers.

I’d love to hear about your tips for managing a complex workload. Please leave a note in the comments section.

Examples used are from a recent project with Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, and her upcoming book Finding The
Civil War in Your Family Album.

Book design and production is a complicated process with a lot of moving parts: text and graphics, multiple people, as well as a fair share of technology gremlins. Some glitches are bound to arise, but many are predictable and thus can be avoided—or at least the effect of them ameliorated—by some advanced planning. Here are five common stumbling blocks:

1. Beginning design without a final manuscript

While it’s a good idea to begin thinking about the design of the book at an early stage in the development of a manuscript, changes in the manuscript along the way can blow what seemed to be a great design out of the water.

One of my watchwords is to “design for the extremes.” Here is an example: I had what I thought was a great chapter opening design because all of the chapter headings I had seen were very short – two or three words – so it fit on one line.

When I received the final manuscript, I noticed that chapter titles toward the end were much longer and, wouldn’t fit in the current design. Not only did the chapter title section need to be resized; many other elements on the page had to be recalculated and rebalaced.

This may, in fact, be a better design. My point here, though, is that we had to backtrack and redo steps in the process we thought were complete: using up time and costing money.

2. Waiting until design and layout are complete before selecting a printer/binder

Your printer can provide valuable information that can help you save time and money. And different printers have different capabilities, affecting the page size that can be printed economically. Even among print-on-demand printers such as blurb and lulu, specifications can vary ever so slightly. For example: both blurb and lulu offer a 10×8 landscape format, but lulu does not offer a dustjacket option in the size and format. And, the trim size is slightly different between the two. Not knowing this ahead of time could mean you have to resize your pages.

3. Not having a system for handling physical and digital images

It is very easy to get confused about which photos go where in a manuscript, which ones have been scanned or retouched, which caption and credit goes with which photo, etc. It’s also very easy to misplace digital files unless you establish a clear naming convention and folder system and create a worksheet to keep track of all the images.

4. Not having a clear review and revision process

This is the area that seems to be the most troublesome for personal histories and others involved in producing privately published books. At what point do you show the book to the client? How is it presented? [While online proofing can be expedient as an intermediate step, I believe that final reviews and revisions should be handled on physical paper.] What are they expected to look for and respond to? How many review cycles are included in your initial estimate? And how will you handle excessive review cycles where the client continues to change the manuscript and/or images?

It may seem excessive, but the more specifically you spell out the review steps, responsibilities and deadlines, the smoother things seem to go.

5. Not having a clear sign-off process

Nothing focuses people like having to sign their name on the dotted line. The first thing they want to know is: what am I agreeing to?

Presenting a review copy to your client along with a sign-off form that focuses them on what they should be looking at is a good way to manage the review and revision process and to ensure that nothing is overlooked.

There are a number of places in the book design and production process where a written sign-off is appropriate. Signing off on printing specifications indicates that you are ready to solicit bids from printers. Signing off on the printers proposal indicates the commitment to use that particular printer/binder and specifies how and when payments will be made. Signing off on the page design indicates approval to proceed to page layout. And signing off on the review proof indicates approval to send the files to the printer. There is usually a final sign-off of the printer’s proof as well

In each case, you will want to develop a form that indicates to the client what to look for and what their signature means. The gist of it is that, by signing, the client agrees to proceed to the next step with the understanding that backtracking will likely to incur additional costs and delay the project’s completion.

Some related posts that might be of interest:

what is workflow? and who cares anyway?
Thinking about [profitable] book design & production

You go back to the office, look up prices for materials, figure out how much time it will take to build, work up a proposal and return to the potential client and say: This will cost $6,000. The potential client says: Oh, dear. I only wanted to spend $3,000. You say: Oh, okay. I guess I can do it for that price.

This is troublesome on so many levels, the most significant one being: the potential client now thinks you just tried to gouge them for $3,000 more than the job actually costs. Why would they want to do business with such a person? A person who might quite accurately be considered a liar and a thief.

Yet this exchange happens in service businesses on a disturbingly regular basis. Not because the people who cave in on price are dishonest. They are usually the nicest, most generous, most scrupulously honest people you can imagine. But they often are uncertain and insecure about pricing.

Now let’s continue this little dialogue, only now, let’s think of this structure in a more metaphorical way. Assuming you were being realistic about the $6,000 fee, then in order to accommodate the client’s budget, something has to go: about $3,000 worth of materials and/or services, right?

Let’s rewind this scenerio and try another tack. What if, instead, you, the honest builder, said: Well, in the $6,000 fee, each window was $1,000. What if we put in only one. [Yeah, I know, my numbers aren’t realistic, but this is a metaphorical building, remember?] You even do a quick sketch to show the client what the project would look like in order to meet the $3,000 budget. Then the potential client might say: Wow, I really think we need another window. Could you do it with two windows for $4,000? You say: Yes, indeed. We’ll change the specs to two windows and adjust the price to $4,000. Your new client says: Let’s do it. Not only do they trust you, but they feel like you are on their side, helping them to get as close to what they want as possible while respecting their budget constraints.

So what do you think? How do you handle it when you discover that you and your prospective client are miles apart on pricing expectations?

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One reason, I believe, why many people get themselves into this predicament is that they really don’t know how to price their services or answer the question: how much will this cost? If that question strikes terror in your heart or makes you queasy, you might find my Money Matters series of teleclasses helpful.

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This little scenerio I just sketched also assumed that the client was negotiating in good faith. For an edgier take on the issue of haggling over  price, check this out:

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Some related posts that might be of interest:

thinking about [profitable] book design

… I plan to share what I have learned about how to think about a book project, organize its content [particularly images], design and produce it—and make a profit doing so.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the “making a profit” part. Many of us who love doing creative work are not so keen on the numbers side of things. Yet, it is exactly the lack of profitability that forces many of us to give up work that nourishes us and [not be too grandious, but I’m just sayin’] contributes something of value to the world in ways both large and small.

So I personally have committed to learning what I need to learn and doing what I need to do to have a business that is profitable and sustainable and moves me from a position of scrambling for work into one of executing a thoughtful plan that moves me toward more strategic goals.

And, to give credence to that old saying that we teach what we need to learn, I have put together two series of workshops specifically focused on the business side of things.

Money Matters is a series of four one-hour teleclasses that covers: Calculating Your Hourly Rate, Evaluating Pricing Models, Estimating, and Gold Is In the Details. Although I work primarily with private publishers, this series is relevant to anyone who needs to set their own pricing, create estimates and proposals, and manage projects, client expectations, and subcontractors. You can sign up for individual classes or for the entire series at a significant savings.

Print Production Workflow: In Depth is another series of four one-hour teleclasses that explores in more depth the tasks, variables, and trouble-spots you are likely to encounter throughout the seven phases of book design and production. The series is divided into 1] Book Design & Cover Design Workflow, 2] Photos, Memorabilia, and Other Graphic Elements Workflow, 3] Page Layout Workflow, and 4] Printing & Binding Workflow. Like the Money Matters series, you can sign up for individual teleclasses or for the entire series at a significant savings.

Two additional teleclass series are in the works: Design Thinking which will cover Book Design Thinking, Design Fundamentals, Typography Fundamentals, and Partnering with Professionals. Digital Image Workflow goes even further into topics addressed in Print Production Workflow such as DAM [Digital Asset Management] Fundamentals, Scanning Fundamentals, Problem Pictures, and Image Editing Fundamentals.

I’ll be supplementing these teleclasses with blog posts and resources related to these topics, which, I hope, will create a holistic curriculum for setting up, executing, and profitably completing book design projects. Here’s to all of us doing good—and profitable—work in the world.

Some related posts that might be of interest:

My original post on book thinking

and a link to  upcoming teleclasses

You do realize, don’t you, that the “book” part of “e-book” is a metaphor? It’s used to describe a way of presenting text through electronic devices. I don’t have any particular beef with the metaphor, but I do have some concerns about how creators of traditional books are reacting to the idea. Here are some of the questions I’ve come across lately.

Do we need to start offering our clients e-books?

Yeah. probably. Why wouldn’t we? The largest proportion of the cost of a privately published book goes into developing the manuscript. Offering an e-book option expands our product offering for very little additional work or cost while generating increased revenue.

Although the “why wouldn’t we?” in the above paragraph was written in a bit of a snarky tone, there may be good reasons why we don’t include that option in our services. Maybe we want to be known as a traditional book publisher of the finest heirloom quality and leave other media to someone else. There’s no right answer; it’s a question of how this product/service offering fits into your overall business plan. [Uh, you do have a business plan, don’t you?]

If I design a traditional book as a two page spread, do I have to redesign it for the e-book format?

Probably, if you want to take full advantage of the electronic format for presenting material. Or, plan ahead when developing the initial design so it presents well in either format. Also keep in mind that each publishing platform – Kindle, iPad, iPhone, web – has slightly different technical requirements.

Yikes! How can I learn yet another new technical thing? It’s all too much!

Who says you have to? There’s no requirement that you do everything yourself. There are online services as well as individual service providers who will handle the conversion of a .pdf file designed for print into the e-book format for you. And these people are going to stay on top of the ever-changing landscape of e-books so you can move on and engage another client and spend your time doing what you do best, or most enjoy. [Hopefully those two things are closely aligned.]

But if you are a learning junkie, there are plenty of online resources. One of the best, in my opinion, is Adobe tv tutorials.

My clients are all old so they’re not going to be wanting to read the book on an iPad or Kindle.

First, don’t be so sure of that. There are a great many web, iPad and iPhone mavens among our elders. And, while we certainly want to make the end product accessible to a range of ages, to a large extent these personal histories  are being created, as Alli Joseph puts it, for the “seventh generation.”

Which format is best for our clients?

This isn’t like buying garden hose at Lowes: with good, better, best marked on the shelf. I personally think the ideal personal history package would combine audio and video, a traditional, beautifully printed and bound book, a slide show of images, and an e-book format. Each of these is an option that the client can select—or not. But if they can only choose one, I vote for the traditional book.

Let’s make this real:

Assume a generation is 25 years – from the birth of the parent to the birth of the first child – so, for someone in their 80s telling their story, they are the 1st generation. Their children are the 2nd, and their grandchildren the 3rd. It’s likely that there are great-grandchildren as well; they comprise the 4th generation. They are probably not going to remember much about great-grandmama. The 5th generation will begin showing up around 2035, the 6th generation in 2060, and the 7th generation around 2085.

It’s probably safe to say that .pdf and the iPad are no longer dominant formats. [It’s also not completely unreasonable to posit that the world has run out of power to run a world wide web and recharge portable devices.] So unless someone takes responsibility for migrating the electronic file created in 2010 to the new formats and media that will arise in the next 75 years, these files on DVDs are likely to end up an inaccessible historic artifact.

A physical book—what I call book-as-object—is a transcendent technology. As long as the paper it’s printed on has not crumbled or the ink/toner run or evaporated, it will still be readable in 2085. It’s easy enough to pass on from one person to another—no optical storage device, or even electricity needed. It can remain dormant for a generation or two and be ready to read when that forgotten trunk in the attic is opened.

Some related posts that might be of interest:

- hum! I don’t actually see any right now.

• The beginning of a project needs a generous amount of calendar time at the beginning. If you’ve estimated 8 hours for design, don’t think you’re going to start at 9 am and be wrapped up at 5 pm. If you have estimated a week, don’t schedule that to begin Monday morning and be completed Friday afternoon. The earlier you are in a project, the more elapsed time you want to build into the schedule.

Time to look at other books as well as non-book sources of design inspirations. Time to walk away when you’re stuck—or even when you think you’ve nailed it. Time to look at it with fresh eyes another day. [And from a profitability perspective, you are likely doing this phase of the project for a fixed fee, so you want to use your time as productively as possible.]

• There will be at least two review cycles in the design phase. And the editor/publisher/client is most likely not on standby just waiting for you to present your ideas. Build in realistic calendar time for the review-revise-review again cycle.

• Before you actually begin production—this includes photos & memorabilia, other graphics, as well as page layout work—envision how the process will go when it’s really cookin’. Move slowly and thoughtfully as you set up your forms, style sheets, templates, and systems. Make sure they really support your work so you can fly through the production phases.

With initial design, and even sometimes the workflow setup, I often need a significant block of uninterrupted time because it will take me a while to submerge myself in the problem. [The image I have is of jumping rope in grade school. Before I jumped in I would stand on the side and feel the rhythm of the rope.]

• Then, with a solid—and signed-off—design and a well-thought out workflow I can fly through the production phase. I can work for hours and sometimes have to force myself to take a break. It’s also the kind of work I can dip into for a couple of hours at a time and make some serious progress. That’s because I don’t have to figure things out; I just have to execute my plan. It’s also the most productive—i.e., profitable—phase of the project cycle.

• At the end of a project—moving into the final review before signing off—there’s often significant pressure to move quickly and sidestep or jerry-rig the carefully thought out workflow and procedures. We’re behind and we have to get this done in time for Christmas, Mother’s Day, graduation, the party—insert important occasion here! On top of the external pressure, I’m tired. I’m grumpy, and I’m possibly a little miffed that I’m not making as good a profit on this project as I had hoped. [Much more on this over the coming months.] So I disregard my carefully thought-out systems and procedures. [It’s true, dear reader. On more than one occasion, no less.] I always regret it. This is exactly the time I need to slow down and pay close attention to what I are doing so I don’t introduce even more errors.

• The back and forth of final review/revision/review again is not going to happen in the span of a few hours. Everyone involved should have quality time with what we hope is the final layout before being handed off to the printer. Don’t rush it!

So, here’s the Cliff Notes version of this post:

• build in a good cushion of calendar time in the design phase and at end of the page layout stage—the final review cycles,

• then go like a cheetah in the middle, turning out enhanced photos and composed pages lickety-split.

Some related posts that might be of interest:

five workflow stumbling blocks that can trip you up

And while this isn’t technically a post, you might be interested in attending my free teleconference for May: Q&A on Print Design & Production

Last week I did a teleclass called Workflow: key to a profitable personal history business and in the process of preparing for it, I put together a list of seven phases of the book design and production process, along with the tasks and milestones in each phase.

Here is a portion of it:

Although this may seem like overkill, it actually is clarifying. The thinking process that breaks the Cover Design phase into discrete units of work defines when one task is completed and the next one begins. It has, as a friend says, “crisp edges”.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Break the overall project into phases. For the book design I do for private publishers, I have seven phases: book design, cover design, photos & memorabilia, other graphic elements, manuscript & other copy, page layout, and printing & binding.
2. Break the work of each phase into discrete tasks that can be expressed in the form subject – verb – object: Who does what and what tangible product results?
3. Use a controlled and consistent vocabulary. Although there are fourteen tasks listed above, there are only seven verbs: develop, prepare, present, review, provide, refine, sign-off. These verbs are used consistently throughout all seven phases of the workflow process. [There are some other verbs used in other stages, but my point is that prepare always refers to the same thing, as does present as does sign-off.
4. Assign each task to only one person. if more than one person needs to be involved in a task, as in the example above for sign-offs, create a separate task for each person. I did, in fact, break this rule in the first task above. [Hey, it’s my project, my teleclass, my blog!] That’s because that task requires the designer and the editor to work together in real time. Think of this particular WHO as one organism, two cells.
   
5. Complete each phase with a formal sign-off. This says: we all agree to move on to the next phase and, should we return to this phase, we understand that it can affect costs and schedules—usually not in a good way. While this certainly can be done via email, pdfs and electronic signatures, consider the impact of using actual paper and pen. We don’t do much of that anymore, except in real estate transactions and when giving informed consent for surgery, so it has a certain gravitas to it.

After you’ve done this exercise once, you’ll then have a conceptual template that can be easily adapted to future projects. [More on this in a future post.]

Some related posts that might be of interest:

what is workflow? and who cares anyway?

five workflow stumbling blocks that can trip you up

You might also find my upcoming teleclass—a freestyle Q&A session—helpful.

I used to have much finer divisions of tasks, but over time I have consolidated some at a higher level. My goal is a system that works with a variety of projects, while separating out key activities that I want to track across projects.

I have 20+ tags [in freckles parlance] that can be grouped into three general areas:

1. Project scope includes activities involved in every book production project I do and are the primary building blocks of the overall project fee. These tags, in the sequence they normally occur in a project are: design, cover, manuscript, photos, additional graphics, layout, review, revisions, tweaks, print coordination, file management, and project management. I’m not going to elaborate on each of these, as I think they are fairly self-explanatory, but a couple of notes might be helpful:

• While the book “cover” involves multiple steps—design, layout, review, revision, etc.—because it’s a discreet item and is something I often prefer to subcontract, I like to see all the associated time under one tag. Also, a book cover takes the same amount of time regardless of the total number of pages held between it, so there’s little efficiency of scale to be gained here.

• “Photos” includes all the activities related to processing the photos provided by the client. I used to track a number of separate activities—scanning, enhancing, restoration, file management, etc—but now I make this distinction in the tag notes. Because I have a hard count of the total number of photos involved in a project, I can develop and track a metric for photos.

• “Additional graphics” includes anything besides the photos a client provides. This might involve online research for additional historic or stock photos, creation of a family tree or illustration. This is another activity that will have a hard count associated with it and it is also one I often subcontract. If I do, the time I spend coordinating with the subcontractor is recorded with this tag and noted as such.

• “Review” is the time I need to spend on the phone or face to face with a client going over a review copy of the book. My very strong preference is for the client to mark up a hardcopy and return it to me, thus eliminating this time. Most don’t want to do it that way, so I track this time and either build it into my initial proposal or use it to provide a “beyond scope” estimate of the additional time that will be billed after my suggestion of a marked up hardcopy is politely declined.

• “Print coordination”, “file management”, and “project management” are invisible but very necessary activities in a project. I track them to remind myself of just how much time needs to be accounted for in both the project fee and the timeline.

2. Client controlled activities are just that: decisions made by the client. Currently I track just two: beyond scope and overtime. Additional review and revision cycles are tracked with the appropriate project scope tag and marked billable or non-billable.

3. Overhead includes tasks that add to project time and cost without contributing any real value. The tasks I track in this area are: proposal, project planning, administration, client communication, training time, lost time and tech issues.

• “Lost time” and “tech issues” are completely on me and my goal is to keep time spent on this as low as possible.

• “Administration” includes invoicing, filing, setting up and closing out a project, running to the post office or FedEx. I track this because it is an easy thing to delegate.

• Preparing a “proposal” is a sales cost and my goal is to streamline this process as much as possible. Since I am not awarded every project for which I submit a proposal [I know, shocking, isn’t it?] I track “proposal” time independent of a particular project.

• “Project planning” is setting up the framework of milestones, tasks, and deadlines within which “project management” will operate. I hypothesize that more time spent on this up front will reduce time spent in low-value project scope tasks.

Once these activities are entered into a time tracking program [ check out freckle, freshbooks, or tsheets] I can refine the metrics I use for estimating projects. I’ll elaborate on these metrics in a future post, but for now I’ll give you a hint: hrs and $$ per finished page, hrs and $$ per photo, hrs and % breakdown by tag, % billable to unbillable. My ongoing quest is to have a few good metrics that I track consistently and that become more refined over time, resulting in more accurate proposed fees and, ultimately, more profitability. And isn’t that what we are all aiming for?

Meanwhile, you might be interested in these related posts:

time tracking: are you doin’ it?

what is workflow? and who cares anyway?

You might also find my upcoming teleclass on workflow helpful.

Now the more difficult question: how much of this was “beyond scope” and can be billed, how much was attributable to poor estimating on my part, how much was “stupid time”, and how much was that pesky overhead—backing up files, paperwork, phone calls, filing, etc—that doesn’t evaporate just because it gets left out of the initial estimate.

My system isn’t pretty, but I do have everything I need to answer these questions. I am always surprised at the number of people—newbies but also those with some jobs under their belt—who do not track their time.

So for those of you who keep good records, kudos to you. The rest of this discussion will be pretty elementary so you may be excused. As for the rest of you, are you kidding me?!? How do you expect to be profitable if you have no idea how long various parts of a job take?

There are a number of useful online systems, and I’ll write about them in a future post, but I have found the path of least resistance for me is to start with paper. Here is the form I’ve been using for over five years. It gives me room to make notes to myself and I don’t need to decide right away what category a particular activity should be assigned to. I make 50 copies and slip a note into the pile where there are only 10 left to remind me to make more copies. I print it on blue paper so it is easy to spot in my job jacket or on my desk.

As soon as I start a project—even a proposal—I record every moment of my time attributable to that project. And each time I begin work on the project I pull out my timesheet and enter the date and start time. When I am interrupted or complete a discrete task, I enter the stop time. If there is some measurable quantity to track—images scanned or enhanced, pages laid out, etc—I enter that number as well.

I make notations as I go something like: “beyond scope-billable”, “beyond scope-no charge”, “beyond scope?”. I track my “stupid time”: misplacing files [paper or digital], updating the wrong version, running out of ink and having to make an hour long trek to the office supply center.

I note “training time”. This is usually not billable [unless the client specifically asked me to learn and use a new program or technique] but I might want to track it as general overhead. I try on every project to learn one or two new things about my software or other technical issues.

While it’s fresh in my mind, I make notes describing problems and what to do differently next time. In sorting the time in this latest project between “beyond scope” and “client-requested revisions”, it became clear that I needed to use a more formal sign-off procedure so the client and I have a clear understanding of the time and costs related to changes and who will be paying for them. In the long run, that should reduce the seemingly endless revision cycles.

One of the things I learn when I go over my raw notes is that there are ripples generated when I don’t get all the materials on time or things are changed on the fly. It’s not just the time it takes to replace text or swap out photos. It’s also the time involved to create another .pdf or print another review copy. It’s the time it takes to correctly integrate new photos into the current image inventory. It’s the time it takes to recheck and correct new errors and glitches introduced when your carefully planned pagination falls apart because of text changes that lengthen or shorten paragraphs.

Here is a sample of a filled out timesheet that includes some learning time, a lot more time organizing images than I anticipated, some stupid time, hardware acting up time, and some tardy revisions from the client.

There’s also the time it takes to upload .pdfs, burn DVDs, prepare shipping envelopes, run them by FedEx, etc. Most of this is overhead and normally isn’t billed to the client, but it’s part of the time involved in a project that needs to be accounted for.

Once I have the time data recorded on my sheet, the next step is to enter it into a program that helps me track and make sense of it. I have used Excel, QuickBooks, Freshbooks and am now trying Freckle and will write more about that in a future post.

P.S. I also think it’s a really good idea to keep timesheets for everything, not just billable work. This would include reading and writing blogs, filing, researching and preparing workshops and teleclasses, strategic planning, bookkeeping, networking, running business errands, etc. But since I have not taken up this practice, I won’t nag you about it—yet. Please feel free to lord it over me if you are already doing this and tell me how it’s going for you.

Meanwhile, you might be interested in this related posts: what is workflow? and who cares anyway? as well as the upcoming teleclass I’ll be offering on the topic.

• What kind of design do you specialize in? If the answer is “Oh, I do everything – logos, websites, business cards, menus, newsletters!” you might be dealing with someone relatively inexperienced trying to build their portfolio. Book design is a specialized subset of graphic design. [And cover design is an even more specialized subset of that. See this fabulous blog curated by Fwis for some wonderful discussions of the thinking process that goes into cover design.]

• How did you learn graphic design? There’s no right answer here. Many book designers, myself included, learned our skills outside a traditional degree program. Others, far fewer than you would expect, have undergraduate or graduate degrees specifically in graphic design; even more, I’ve discovered, have formal educational backgrounds in fine art.

• Tell me about some of your recent book projects. You want to see if the designer has done something similar to the project you have in mind. You also want to listen for how they speak about the work and the client. Are they whiney or grumbling or do they frame the inevitable rough spots in terms of challenges and learning? Is this how you would like them to speak about you?

• How can I see examples of these projects? Often a designer will have samples on their website. As your intentions become more serious, you may want to ask to see actual books so you can assess the printing and binding as well as the design. [Yeah, that’s worth a post in itself as well.] Sometimes, with privately published books, there are confidentiality agreements. That’s where references come in.

• Can you put me in touch with some of your recent clients? References are always important, whether you are engaging a book designer, a hair stylist, or a surgeon. [The questions you might ask of these references will be covered in a future post.]

• What kinds of projects are you best at? Again, “Oh, I can do everything!” is not the answer you’re listening for. Some book designers pride themselves on being able to turn a book in a very short amount of time. Some love the opportunity to set typography as fine as a medieval tapestry. Others revel in books with very elaborately laid-out pages. I bring my A-game to projects with lots of photos, lots of different informational elements that need to be organized, and a complex process that begs for strong project management.

• Tell me how a project like this would go. There’s no right or wrong answer here, but you want to have confidence that the designer has an overall workflow in place. Book projects are rarely as straightforward as they seem at the outset; you’d like to hear that the designer has some idea where the pitfalls may be and has built in reviews and checkpoints to reassess the overall project plan and make adjustments when necessary.

• What is a realistic timeline for a project like this? Experienced professional designers will be able to answer this question, usually in terms that describe the variables that can affect schedule and budget: number of review cycles, client deadlines, etc.

Okay, now you can ask:

• How do you normally price work like this? There are a number of legitimate pricing models used by professional designers. [For a good background in this, see the Graphic Artists’ Guild Pricing and Ethical Guidelines.] Some designers bill by the hour and provide a tight estimate up front. Some have a fixed price for lower-budget projects that offer a limited number of options; for higher-budget work, they would present a proposal outlining the scope and anticipated costs. [See why invest in good design for a more in-depth explanation of these pricing models.] Still others use metrics based on final number of pages, word count, number of photos, etc. Often a project will involve some combination of these factors. Whatever model they use, you want to feel comfortable discussing costs with the designer and have a clear idea of what is included in the price and what changes will require renegotiation.

There are many more questions and areas of discussion you might go into [and I’m sure to be writing about them in future posts]. The key things you should be listening for at this point is a sense of competence, professionalism and flexibility. Particularly for personal histories and other privately published books, this will become a very intimate professional relationship so you want to have confidence in the book designer you are engaging.

Related posts you might like:

working with a designer-part one

why not design the book yourself?

reading a book like a designer

what is “book thinking”?