SKILLS:
I've worked daily with:
• InDesign CS5.5 and back (Mac OSX)
• ETM and OVID tagged text files
• MS Word docs
• book file setup: trim sizes, page and gutter margins
• detailed book layout: front matter, back matter, story flow, table of contents, chapter openers, heds, lists, letters, extracts, epigraphs, headnotes, footnotes, endnotes, running heads and folios, anchoring and floating art, captions, title treatments, etc.
• production-editorial guidelines (bad breaks, widow/orphan control, etc.)
• author/editorial revisions
• global type and style changes (for faster file editing)
• paragraph, character, and object styles
• baseline grids and guides
• nested styles and drop-caps
• numbering and section options
• text variables and automated text-fills
• table creation and manipulation
• text wrap options
• clipping paths
• image manipulation and prepping for print
• drop shadow, transparency and other effects
• layers
• leading, line tracking and letter kerning
• hyphenation and justification settings
• strokes and paragraph rules
• keep options and paragraph spacing
• layout auto-adjustment
• bullets and numbering
• tab and leader adjustment (for TOC, endnotes, etc.)
• hyperlinking and text anchors
• file preflighting and packaging
• PDF presets for RRDonnelley and commercial printers
• online book printing/self-publishing website integration (Blurb.com, etc.)
• PDF creation & manipulation using Adobe Acrobat
• paperback reductions and resizing
BOOK CREATION has hit the masses.
Online templates, self-publishers, plug-and-play. You can have bound books in hand in a week for a hundred bucks. Never mind that the font's clunky, the kerning's a mess, there are widows in every chapter, and the design's as generic as every other book out there that's set with it. How long did it take you to write your masterpiece? And how soon will your hard work be ignored because of an automated or amateur design? Tell your readers they can take your book seriously. Hire a professional to lay it out with a design that's tailor-made to suit your text.
I've been designing books professionally for over 6 years, and I've designed nearly 200 titles. I started with a small-run publisher in Kentucky in 2005, then in July 2008 I was hired to work in-house at HarperCollins Publishers, one of the leading English-language book publishers in the world. I worked there full-time for two years under Lucy Albanese and Leah Carlson-Stanisic, after which I became a freelance book designer.
I work with small publishers and serious authors. My rates start at $500 and are often under $1,000. I can design your book's interior and provide you e-book files for Kindles, nooks, and Apple devices. I do not design covers or logos. Email me to request an itemized quote.
