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BookDesign.ca
1040 Springboard Place
Victoria, BC V9B 3E1
CANADA
Jim Bisakowski
Phone: (250) 478-5111
Cell: (236) 562-6270
Call or email if you have questions,
or would just like
to talk about publishing.
email: bookdesign@shaw.ca
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Get A Free Estimate
ost publishing projects
are unique and costs
can vary
substantially. Our fees are based on $75/hr. See this
link for payment
methods.
If you would like a free cost estimate for your
self-publishing book
project, e-mail the details and I'll get back to you that day or the
next.
For a better idea of the production process and the
costs involved, see Book
Design Costs .
For your guidance and to help me better estimate
the cost, some items that have a bearing
on costs are listed
below. You can copy this text and place it directly into your email.
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Book Information
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What is your book about?
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Approximately how many pages?
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What is the physical size of your book?
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Inside pages - color or all black
ink?
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Inside paper color - (white, crême, ?)
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Cover - soft
paperback or hard cover (with
dust jacket or case laminate)?
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Do you have a cover design in mind?
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Photos or illustrations supplied? How many?
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Any charts, tables or graphs? How many?
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Will it have an index, bibliography, footnotes,
endnotes, or glossary?
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Will all text be supplied as an electronic file?
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Will the file be provided in MS Word using
Word's paragraph styles feature?
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Do you plan also to produce it as an e-book?
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When would you like the finished product?
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Who will be printing your book?
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How many copies do you plan to print?
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What is the ISBN?
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What price will you want on the back cover?
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Where are you?
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Send Big Files
Sending files as attachments to your emails is probably
the easiest way to upload files to BookDesign.ca, but if you have very
big files that your e-mail server can't handle (bigger than 15MB -
20MB), you may want to use the easy and free SMASH file transfer service. It will accept
individual files as well as folders.
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Book Design and Costs
- The cost to design and produce a simply formatted 100
page novel (including cover, bar codes, etc) is usually under $600.
This assumes cover design and layout will take 3 to 5 hours and inside
text design and layout will take another 3 to 4 hours (both at $75/hr).
In some cases I’ve found that I’ve been able to complete some very
straight-forward books requiring no changes for less than $400.
- For a 400 page book, the cost would be under $900.
- Additional book production costs are incurred by
adding headings, sub-headings, bulleted text, charts, tables, callouts,
sidebars, index, footnotes, endnotes, appendices, etc.
- I’ve found that preparation and placement of
illustrations and photographs with captions may add about $5-$10 per
image. Photo scanning (if required) would add about $2 per photo. Image
clean-up and adjustments, if required, would add further to the cost.
- Low image resolution is often a stumbling block in
the production of a quality book. Most photos are now taken with
smartphones or digital cameras set at the medium to low camera default,
which is usually set for photos to be sent to friends and family over
the internet. Photos for a printed book must be of a higher resolution.
For a further explanation of required photo resolution, see
http://bookdesign.ca/31a_Photos.html
- We receive, and can work with manuscripts and book
material in various stages of preparedness. Keep your manuscript
simple. The closer your material is to the simple electronic manuscript
guidelines, the easier it will be for your designer (think time and
$$). It is important that you read through my web page on manuscript
preparation at: http://bookdesign.ca/31a_Manuscript.html.
If you’re not
sure how to prepare your manuscript, talk with me before spending much
time on it.
- By seeing your manuscript and cover material, I’ll be
able to determine whether it is ready for production, or whether there
is more you could do in order to make it easier for me (and reduce your
costs). It will also allow me to give you a more precise cost estimate.
- If you are familiar with the efficient use of MS Word
paragraph styles, then it is possible to set up your manuscript in such
a way that the time I spend on formatting can be significantly reduced
for some books with a more complex layout. See my web page at
http://bookdesign.ca/31a_Word_Styles.htm
- Index, footnotes and endnotes can be prepared either
before the manuscript is submitted for design, or after the final book
layout is completed. See my web page at
http://bookdesign.ca/31a_Indexing.htm
- When I receive your final text manuscript (preferably
as one single file, with photo files supplied separately), I will make
it ready for processing in a page layout program (InDesign). Removal of
extra spaces, extra paragraph returns and so on is quite
straight-forward, but dealing with a manuscript that has had
substantial formatting done to it may require some extra time. Most of
your work will need to be undone before I can start, so keep it simple.
- Cover design cost will also depend on how much time I
spend on it. If you supply me with all the cover text material and the
images, the cost may be as little as $200. If I need to make
substantial changes to the image, it may cost $400. If I need to find
images and make changes to them, it may cost $600. (By searching
through stock photo sites such as http://www.bigstockphoto.com/ for
images from which we could choose, you could reduce my work time
considerably). If original photography, original artwork or custom
illustrations are required, costs will increase accordingly. In my cost
estimate, I’ll assume you will provide photos or illustrations
requiring little modification.
- Cover and interior design are influenced by the
subject matter of your book, writing style and tone of the writing, as
well as the intended audience. Your comments and my review of the
material will both play a part in the way the book will look.
- In most cases, initial book page designs will be sent
to you for your critique and approval, then upon approval and before
formatting begins, a deposit of about 1/3 the estimated cost will be
requested.
- When you receive your first complete draft, it is
expected that you will go through it carefully and very likely find
that there will be changes you want to make. Very seldom is a first
draft presented requiring no author alterations, so in our cost
estimating we assume that you will ask for up to fifty changes or so to
be made. Based on time, the cost to make changes is about $0.75 per
change. There is also a minimum 15 minute charge every time the book
document needs to be opened and new PDFs produced. It is quite easy for
me to make changes to the document, but costs can add up so I strongly
urge you to have your final manuscript editorially as close to perfect
as you can make it before sending it to me. Proofreading (by you or
someone you appoint) is your responsibility.
- During the production process, you will receive PDF
files, first for approval of design, then for proofing. Detailed
billing reports will be sent on a regular basis. It would be unusual,
but if, for some reason, production costs appear to be heading higher
than my initial upper estimate, I will let you know as soon as it
starts to become apparent to me.
- When completed, you will receive high resolution
print-ready text and cover PDF files. They will have been prepared to
your printer’s specifications (for Amazon KDP, Lightning Source,
IngamSparks or whoever you engage to print your books). You may also
have any of the source files used to create your book.
E-book
- Books which are to be designed for print books and
e-books require some special attention during the design and layout
process, particularly if there are photos involved. It’s best to know
this ahead of time.
- This additional work plus the time to convert the
files for Amazon Kindle and other e-book readers would add
approximately another $100 (novels and books with a simple layout, or
PDF e-book format) to $350 (more complex books with headings,
sub-headings, photos etc).
- For more information on the differences between print
and e-book production, see my web page at
http://bookdesign.ca/31a_Create_ebook.htm
http://bookdesign.ca/31a_Create_ebook.htm
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So, the cost to bring your book to the stage where it is ready for
printing will depend on the time it takes to do it. I’ll give you a
more precise estimate when I’ve seen all your material. You can send it
as email attachments.
Copyright © 2011
BookDesign.ca - All rights reserved
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