11 - leading mentors coaching - building credibility

8/10/2019 11 - Leading Mentors coaching - Building Credibility

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Copyright 2006-2009. Mission Publishing, a division of The Mission Marketing Mentors, Inc. All rights reserved.

These materials are subject to the license set forth in the Publishing Mentor Agreementand may not be copied or used except as specified in the license.

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The Leading Mentors Publishing and Marketing System

Teleseminar #14

This transcript is only minimally edited so you can still benefit directly from the live,

transformational experience of the original session.

14:01 Three of the Most Important, Yet Least Appreciated Steps in Authoring a

Book: Page Layout, Proofreading and Printing CD Track 1

John: Hello, everyone. This is John Eggen, the publisher at Mission Publishing.Welcome to this teleseminar in The Leading Mentors Publishing and MarketingProgram. Youll learn more of the step-by-step fundamentals of authoring a bookin 90, 180, or 365 days, during our session.

Well be focusing on three of the most important, yet least appreciated, steps in

authoring a book and other information products containing printed materials.Those three are page layout - sometimes referred to as typesetting or interiordesign - proofreading, and printing.

14:02 Guest Expert: Pete Masterson, Book Production Specialist

What Ive found over the years is that that most first and second-time authorsoften dont realize that many high-quality manuscripts end up lacking credibilityas books and information products precisely because of their authors lack ofknowledge about these three aspects of production. To help you avoid thisproblem, Ive invited one the experts on my team, Mr. Pete Masterson, to join me

today.

Ill be interviewing Pete about many of the most important issues in these threeaspects of book and information product production. So far, in his career, Pete hashelped to create the interior design, or otherwise produce, about 600 books, aswell as another 400 or so printed information products. In fact, Pete did theinterior design for the book that Mission Publishing published. Petes own book,Book Design and Production, A Guide for Authors and Publishers,was recentlyreleased.

After our interview, Ill open it up for the balance of the hour so you can ask Pete

any questions that you might have on page layout, proofreading and printing.These are the steps were focusing on in this particular session.

Pete, Id like to welcome you to our teleseminar tonight.

Pete: Thank you.


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John: Ive been looking forward to this, Pete, because you and I have had so manywonderful conversations and projects that weve been working on together. Ireally wanted to share your knowledge and wisdom with the members in thegroup this year. Why dont we just jump in. Is that okay with you, Pete?

Pete: Sure thing.

14:03 The Importance of Page Layout CD Track 2

John: I guess the first thing I want to talk to you about has to do with page layout. Ifound that authors with little experience dont tend to think much about theinterior design and page layout of a book that theyre authoring, but experiencedauthors realize that page layout is a very important part of the process. To get usrolling tonight, Pete, would you please define what page layout is, and thenexplain some of the main reasons why its so important?

Pete: Certainly. Page layout - or typesetting or book design [as its sometimes called],

not all people even realize books are designed. There is a thousand years oftradition in book design, starting back with the ancient scribes and up through thefirst printed book of 500 years ago. The Gutenberg Bible, the first Westernprinted book, is considered one of the most beautifully designed books evercreated, but he used 500 years of the traditions of the scribes to create his design.

We almost have a genetic expectation of what books should look like. Beginningpublishers make a serious mistake if they ignore these expectations that peoplehave. Book distributors, book wholesalers, retailers and reviewers, they look at abook and they instantly recognize beginner errors and, therefore, may choose notto stock a book simply because of an error that an amateur may not be aware of,

but which is very obvious to the professional.

14:04 Avoid These Common Page Layout Errors

John: Thats good. Youre talking about errors and over the years, I too have noticedthat there are certain errors that most all first and second-time authors tend tomake the most when it comes to page layout. Can you run through some of themost common errors and how they can be avoided?

Pete: The most common errors mostly have to do with the leftovers of our typingclasses. We all learned to type period, space, space, at least if youre a little

older than average, perhaps. This was created at the time when typewriters werenot computers, and they had a fixed amount of space for every letter andcharacter. To make a sentence obviously come to an end, you need an extra space.Modern computer typefaces are designed with the appropriate amount of spaceavailable A single space following a period is correct.

Another common error is using the straight quotes like the typewriter has insteadof the curly quotes, as people call them, or typographers quotes, which look like


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the little 66 and 99 at the beginning and end of the phrase, or in otherlanguages there are other quotes. If we have any British people on board, theyreverse the American process and use single quotes rather than double. You needto be aware of the culture that the book is focused toward as well as thetypesetting conventions.

Another mistake is using underline instead of bold or italic to emphasize.Underline actually causes an ugly display, particularly when it passes through theletters that hang down, like the g, y, p, and q. In fact, when you look at aprofessionally typeset book, and you see what looks like an underline, in general,what youre looking at is a rule that is positioned below the words so it does notinterfere with descending portions of any characters.

Those are the common ones. One other common one is using a half-inch indent.Word, unfortunately, has that as a default. Thats way too much of an indent. Itsa holdover from the typewriting days. A quarter-inch is, frankly, much closer tothe traditional typesetting indent, which was two m spaces, which is based on

the size of the letter m. Thats technical a quarter-inch, remember that.

14:05 Pitfalls of Page Layouts Using Word Processing Programs CD Track 3

John: You were talking about Word, and that reminds me of another error. A lot ofbeginning authors, Ive noticed, tend to use word processing programs to actuallydevelop the page do their page layout. I know, and you know, some peoplepromote that idea. Ive seen that create problems. Can you speak to that?

Pete: Certainly. Word processing programs are great for processing words, however,they were designed for less-formal business reports - things that are read once and

thrown away. A formal book should have fully justified type. That means that theleft and right-side margins form a straight line. A normal memo that you mighttype in a word processor would be ragged right. In a formal book, you generallywould avoid a ragged right appearance and have everything fully justified.

The problem with word processors is that they have very simplistic computerprogramming to create that fully justified look. They simply add space betweenwords and they prefer to add space rather than create a hyphenation. Now, anexpert word processor might be able to fiddle with all the multitude of settings inWord or Word Perfect, and achieve an almost reasonable-looking typesetappearance at great effort, but programs that are specifically designed for page

layout or typesetting are preferred.

Those programs are things like Adobe InDesign, Adobe FrameMaker,QuarkXPress, Adobe PageMaker and there are some other programs that mightwork, but probably should be avoided due to lake of support, generally, or theyrenot professional. One to avoid, for example, is Microsoft Publisher. Its great ifyoure doing a church bulletin, but if youre doing a formal book, youd wishyoud used something of a more professional nature.


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14:06 Save Time and Money Edit Before Starting the Page Layout Process CD

Track 4

John: Thats good, Pete. Theres also an interface and interplay between page layoutand editing that I want to talk about. It can save time and money. To help ourmembers save time and money, would you explain why its important to have

your manuscript thoroughly edited before you start the page layout or interiordesign process?

Pete: Thats one of those things thats a sore point for me.

John: Me too.

Pete: First of all, no writer should ever think that theyre so good that they dont needan editor. I worked at a typesetting service that did work for HarperCollins.Among the books we typeset was one written by Pope John Paul. There are thosewho believe that the Popes formal writing is the inspired Word of God. There are

others who would say that the Pope is infallible. Im not saying everybody thinksthat, but there are those that do that. Yet, the Pope had an editor. If the Pope hadan editor, can we mere mortals not have one?

First, you need an editor to help you not embarrass yourself. An editor is not likeyour English teacher from school that graded the paper. An editor actually helpsyou better express what it is that you have to say. Followed by editing, there is theproofreading function. Editing changes words, fixes sentences, and whatever youneed, at whatever level you need it. Some writers will need more of whats calleddevelopmental editing; others may just need a copy edit.

John: Weve covered that issue and the distinction in previous teleseminars.

Pete: Once youve done the editing, you also need to proofread. Proofreading may bedone by a professional editor, it may be done by a professional proofreader, or itmay simply be done by someone who has excellent secretarial skills who goesthrough looking for misspelled words, the comma thats missing, the period didntget there and so forth.

The reason you want to have a thoroughly proofread, and as clean a manuscript ascan possibly be made, is that when you hand it off to a professional page layoutperson, once the book is typeset, you will see more errors. Thats inevitable. You

want to minimize the number of those to the extent possible because each of thoseerrors is going to cost you money to fix. The typesetter has to go back into thetypesetting file and make the change. That takes time and youre billed for that. Icharge $60 an hour to input changes.

John: That can drive up your bill if you havent had your manuscript thoroughly edited.


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Pete: Exactly. Back in the days when I was doing work for HarperCollins and others,we actually made more money on the corrections than we did on the basictypesetting. Price structures were a little different in those days. Things were notas electronic as they are now. It was an interesting process, and the billing wasvery interesting.

John: Lets talk for a minute about what happens when an author starts to realize thattheir manuscript wasnt thoroughly edited. If they dont get the additional editing,and you dont get the errors corrected, talk about what that can do to thecredibility of the book.

Pete: It sends the credibility down the tubes. Ive been amazed in this world. Theres acertain percentage of the population that is extremely fastidious about whatappear to be uneducated errors in text. Frankly, Ive even encountered errors inbooks by authors I have a great deal of respect for. Ive been mildly shocked bythem and surprised that the editorial control had not caught them. Someone is lessconvinced of the authority of the writer and may decide the writer just doesnt

know what theyre talking about because they misspelled a word.

John: What we can conclude by this is that its important to have your manuscript asthoroughly edited as possible before starting the page layout or interior designprocess.

Pete: Thoroughly edited and thoroughly proofread, then once the page layout is done, itmust be thoroughly proofread as many times as it takes to get every error out. Theway the process usually works is that the typesetter will do the page layout andsend a proof to the client, who then personally or, preferably, has somebody notfamiliar with the work proof it. The trouble is you tend to read what you think you

see. I have great difficulty correcting errors I make because I see what I thought Ityped.

John: Me too.

Pete: Either I can see errors if I leave something alone for several days, or I can give itto somebody who is not familiar with the work, preferably somebody with someskills at proofreading, which would be either somebody that frequently doessecretarial work or a professional proofreader. If you have a friend do theproofreading, pay them. A friend, who is not paid may not do a very thorough job.If you pay them, they will, presumably, take the responsibility that this is

important and that they need to do it right.

The marked-up proof copy is returned to the typesetter, who enters the correctionsand prepares a second proof, and you repeat the cycle until youre satisfied thatevery error, humanly possible, has been taken out of the text. That doesnt meanthat there wont be errors in it, but it means that youve done the best you canbefore you go to press.


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John: There are always errors in the first edition of a book or a printed informationproduct. The first edition is probably the edition that will have the most errors ofall, assuming you dont do a complete revision. Its always natural to have someerrors, right?

Pete: Thats right. Anything more than a couple of pages in length is going to have

errors. Indeed, I just got my book back from the printer. I have a copy withinreach, as a matter of fact, that Ive marked the cover, Office Copy, and Ive allready found an error or two that Ive marked. I will use that copy to correct thoseerrors for future editions.

John: Thats a good tactic that any of our members can use, is that once they get theirbook, put one aside as the office copy and use it accumulate those errors so youcan make the necessary corrections.

Pete: Exactly, and as it happened, a couple of the cartons were a little bit roughed up intransit - not seriously so I picked out one that is less than pristine. It makes good

use of what would otherwise probably not be a copy that Id want to sell.

John: Lets talk about printing. Printing is often the single biggest expense there is inthe book authoring process. Obviously, its important to plan ahead for it. To doso, there are a few key issues to consider, I guess Id say. Would you educate ourmembers on some of these key issues so that they can get the most out of theirprinting-budget dollars, and get a great print job in the process, Pete?

14:07 The Difference Between Digital Printing Technology and Traditional OffsetPrinting CD Track 5

Pete: Sure. There are two essentially different technologies that are commonly used forprinting books these days. One is called digital printing technology and the otherone well call traditional offset printing. Essentially, you may hear of the digitaltechnology sometimes referred to as print-on-demand. That is not to be confusedwith certain publishers that are subsidy publishers like iUniverse, Xlibris, andothers who offer a publishing service and call themselves a POD publisher.

Print-on-demand originally intended to cover printing one book per order, andthat economically, doesnt work. The digital printing has grown up so that if youprint two or three hundred copies at a time, thats often an economic quantity.There are some factors there it depends on the length of the book, and so forth.

Now, my book at 320 pages with a large format of 7 3/4 by 10 7/8 inches, whenprinted in a quantity of 100 copies, is around $8.00 per copy. Thats a little highfor some books, but the nature of the book allows it to have a somewhat higherprice than say a novel that length would have. I could afford to sell some copiesof the book with that cost, at the list price that Ive chosen.


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In general, shorter books work better the economics work better for digitalprinting. One of my clients has a relatively short book, only 112 pages. In running300, 400, even 500 copies, digitally, it costs him less. To make it worthwhile withthe investment in inventory the storage costs and so-called opportunity costs thats actually more efficient for him than printing offset printing.

He would need to run three or four thousand copies to make the numberssignificantly better for offset printing. However, for a longer book or a larger-format book, that switchover point in the economics comes a lot sooner.Typically, somewhere between 500 and 1,000 copies for most books is where thetransition between digital printing as the first choice, to offset printing as the firstchoice, occurs.

John: Typically between 500 and 1,000 copies.

Pete: Yes, somewhere in that range.

John: It depends on the size of the book and the number of pages.

14:08 The Rule of Thumb for Determining How Many Books to Print in a FirstRun CD Track 6

John: Pete, I have another question I want to ask you about what you were just saying. Iknow weve gotten a few emails on this and, in fact, I think we received onetoday, How does an author determine how many books they should get printedfor their first run?

Pete: Thats the $64,000 question. In general, the rule of thumb is, you should print

about a years supply of books, but that presumes you know what a years supplyof books is. If you did the financial analysis, roughly a one-years supply of booksis what you want. But you never know how many books youre going to sell.

Probably the typical business consultant kind of person might want no more than500 or so books, perhaps a 1,000. They may want to do a shorter run as a digitalpress run, even if theyre a little expensive on a unit-cost basis, to get a feel forhow the market is for their book and, importantly, how much effort they want toput into marketing the book. The biggest factor is the effort that you put intomarketing.

One of my clients did a book that I thought was going to be his lifetime supply. Ithad to do with hiking. He did it in full color, which made it very expensive. Hehad to run 3,500 copies because, with the color printing, you need to run more tobring the average unit cost down. Well, he sold out in eight months. He was oneheck of a salesman.

Were now in the third edition and hes sold over 10,000 copies of it. Hes goneback to press with new editions two more times. Hes a super salesman. I would


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not have been able to predict that about him from my conversations with him.Certainly, looking at the book, as it stood in comparison with all other books thatIve seen, I didnt think that it would have a very large market. Indeed, twopublishers had turned him down. They didnt want to publish the book in the waythat it was created.

14:09 How to Pick a Printer CD Track 7

John: I know that in the United States alone, there are about 50,000 printers. About 100of them specialize in book printing, although almost any printer can actually printa book. Im wondering, since were talking about printing

Pete: How do you pick out a printer?

John: Yes.

Pete. A major mistake people often make is they go to their local print shop and they

say, I have a book. Id like it printed. Printers are all trained to never turn downa job. What your local ma and pa print shop will do is they say, Well, sure. Wecan do that for you. Here, well get back to you with a price. What they do isthey get on the phone and they find a printer who really can do the job, and theyget a price and they add 30% to it, and call you back with it and then you thinkbook printing is really expensive.

However, if you find one of these printers that specialize in books, what youllfind is that theyre probably some distance away. Most of the book printers in theUnited States are in the mid-west. There are a few on the East Coast. If you are onthe West Coast, the East Coast printers arent practical due to the freight cost.

Even though there are printers in California capable of printing books, its farcheaper to have a printer in Michigan, Illinois, or Kansas do the printing than alocal one, even with the freight cost. I know that with the book that you did, andwith my book, they were both printed in Indiana. They were both printed at thesame printers, as a matter of fact.

John: It was Illinois, actually.

Pete: In Illinois. Thats right. Flyover country, as they call it. I wouldve paid thousandsmore to print them within driving distance of my home. Theres a printer that

wouldve done it, but theyre not set up to efficiently print books. Theres oneCalifornia printer thats actually owned by a large publishing company. Theycome right out and say that if the quantity is under 5,000, they cant compete.Indeed, their pricing bears that out.


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14:10 Tips for Hiring the Right Printer to Print Your Book CD Track 8

John: What would you say are the four or five good tips for hiring the right printer foryour book?

Pete: On my website, Ive created at list of over 100 book printers, including some in

Asia, primarily because of color printing work. My website gives you somepointers on filling out a Request for Quotation, that you need to create. Whatyou do is you discuss your project with one or two printers and get a feel for whatthe appropriate choices are for the materials of the book.

Then you write out a set of specifications that the book will be printed on 60-pound white paper, and itll have a certain type of cover, whether its a hardcoveror soft cover, and the kind of binding you want, and so forth. Then you submit aRequest for Quotation to a dozen or so printers that you have researched,checking their website, that would indicate that they are likely printers.

Off the top of my head, the major printers like R.R. Donnelley or QuebecorWorld, those are very large printers, but they also work with very largepublishers. Youd become a tiny, flea-speck customer with an order of a thousandor so books. Youre not likely to get the service, or for that matter, the price thatwould give you a satisfactory end result with a very large printer in most cases.

You might be looking for printers that are in the tier below that. Those thatspecialize in doing runs of 1,000 to 5,000, or 1,000 to 10,000. Many times, theydescribe themselves as short-run book printers. A short-run book printing isusually 1,000 to 10,000 copies, which is what most of the listeners to thisconversation would want.

John: Although the majority of our members are in the United States, we have membersin 11 countries, so would you talk about choosing a printer? Weve been talkingabout U.S. printers because thats where we are and thats where the majority ofour members are, but for all of our other members in other countries, would youtalk about anything else they should do regarding their choice of a printer? Forexample, Im assuming youd agree with me, that its wise to use a printer onyour own continent.

Pete: In general, yes. With the exception that if youre a U.S.-based publisher, and youhave book with heavy use of color, you may want to print in Asia. An Australian

might, for example, use a printer based in Singapore or Thailand. In general, youshould be using somebody thats within a few thousand miles.

The reality is, the typical trade book, which has a black ink interior and a colorcover, when it comes to printing a printer in Singapore might be competitive on it,except therell be many additional weeks waiting for the transport. That isnt avery reasonable thing to do. Somebody, in say, Australia using a printer inSingapore, theyre in the same general neighborhood, so that makes sense.


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The local quality issues its dangerous for a U.S.-based publisher, whosinexperienced, to try a printer who has not printed for our market. Likewise, itwould be equally an error for a publisher in India to use a printer in the UnitedStates because there are certain quality standards. Im talking about the paperweights and quality of materials.

For example, the typical wage of an Indian worker is certainly much less than atypical worker in Australia, the United States, or Europe. Therefore, books thatare produced for the local Indian market tend to be of construction that would notbe acceptable in the United States. We would think the book shoddy and inferior.Yet, that would be the standard of the market in India.

Likewise, a book printed here for the Indian market, would likely have too muchquality, resulting in a way too high price so you couldnt sell it. You have to beaware of your local economy and what the expectations are for your specificmarket, for your specific book.

John: I think we should open up the line for questions and answers. Before I do that, Ido want to mention to everyone that Petes book is called Book Design andProduction, A Guide for Authors and Publishers.

Whether youre an author working with a publisher, or an author that is self-publishing, or one that has your own small publishing firm, I think this book ofPetes can help you understand the book production process and the principles ofgood cover and interior book design, as well as printing.

In thinking about it, if you have Petes book, youll be able to identify commonerrors as well to see if your book is following the traditions of book design that

Pete was talking about at the beginning, that will give credibility to your messagebased on the 1,000-year tradition thats behind the interior design of books.Whether you do the work yourself or let someone else take care of it for you,Petes book is the kind of book that can help you do it right. I suggest to everyonethat you check it out. Pete, is the best place to go to check it out the homepage ofyour website?

Pete: Yes. If you go to my homepage at www.Aeonix.com, the first thing youll see isthe announcement of the book. Follow the links and it will describe the bookmore fully and give you an opportunity to order.

John: Pete, why dont we open up the line so you can help some folks with theirquestions, okay?

Pete: Im ready.

John: Who can we help first?


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Ken: I already have published a book with a publishing house and Ive got a proposalin for a second one, and I just wonder if you can tell me about what the rulesmight be for people who are working with a publisher versus those who are self-publishing. Obviously, Id like to be educated and Id like to feel like I washelping them, but I dont want them to look at me like someone who has a know-it-all attitude or is making their life difficult.

Pete: When youre working with a publisher, in part, it depends if it is a smallerpublisher or one of the giants.

Ken: This is a small publisher.

Pete: In that case, you should simply open a conversation with them and ask them,How can I help make it easier for you? In general, I find that the fewer favorsauthors try to do for me, the better it works. Im used to receiving manuscriptsthat are simply laid out as manuscripts.

If a client goes to the effort of adding additional formatting to, perhaps, make itlook more like a book, very often that ends up merely meaning that I have to takeit all back out. Its more work than if they just left it alone in the first place.Clearly, as clean a manuscript as possible is always a plus.

Ken: In terms of formatting, I assume bold and italic is okay, but going beyond that isoverkill. Is that what youre saying?

Pete: Bold and italic is okay. If you have numbered lists or bulleted lists, you shoulduse those because they would want to continue them on. Dont try to break itdown to page-by-page and worry about page breaks or things like that. If you

have footnotes, you should be sure that theyre numbered properly.

Some of the word processors are okay when they number them initially, but if youmove things around, sometimes the numbers get fouled up, so double check thatthe footnote numbers are correct. Generally, footnotes will be turned intoendnotes. Its simpler that way, from a production standpoint. The formattingshould be as light as possible to get your meaning across.

Ken: Thank you very much. Thats very helpful.

Pete: Youre welcome.

John: Who else can we help?

Steve: Im wondering if when you do the interior design and you send the proof to theauthor, what format is that in? Is that in the PDF format?

Pete: Often its PDF and generally, its also in hardcopy.


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Steve: What rights does the author have to the actually typeset format? If you do thelayout in QuarkXPress, should the author be entitled to a copy of that file?

Pete: There are differences of opinion on that point. You should ask a perspectivedesigner. Personally, I provide every one of my clients with a CD or an electroniccopy of some sort of the base typesetting files. Everything that I would send to the

printer, I also ensure that the client gets a copy of. There are a couple of wrinklesin how thats done, primarily due to the sales tax rules California. I have to treatmy California clients a little differently than all the others.

Steve: That was an issue with me having some art work done. The designer said, No.No. You dont get the Photoshop files or the QuarkXPress files. I keep those. Itwasnt that big a deal, so I let it go.

Pete: Some designers feel that way because it forces you to go back to that designer ifwant further changes to that work. If the designer has created some copyrightableaspect of it, you should have a design contract with your designer.

John: Thats the point I was going to make too. Get it in writing in advance, Steve.

Pete: Absolutely.

John: Dont settle for anything less. Ive had horrible experiences with that. Otherpeople have too. Let our errors teach you so you dont have to go through that.

Pete: A professional designer will have no trouble with that. I have a form contract thatIve worked out. I happen to believe that publishers need to have full control, so Ihave just the lightest touch in what I reserve. Other designers may not be as

generous, and thats okay too, as long as you understand whats involved.

Steve: I have one more question about hardcover and soft cover. Ive been told I shouldhave the book printed with both types of cover - the hardcover that I can give tospecial clients and soft cover that are sold. Are there any thoughts on that, orrecommendations?

Pete: The client copy versus the for-sale copy is one issue. A hardcover will add $3.00to $4.00 per copy in the production cost depending on your quantity in the typicalquantities that most people are going to order. You usually can get about $10more at retail in hardcover, however, you need to look at the other books in your

genre. If theyre all soft cover, you should publish soft cover. If theyre allhardcover, you should publish hardcover.

Steve: Its a mix, so its hard to decide.

Pete: Its perfectly reasonable to do split runs of soft and hardcover. You never get thenumbers right, so you usually end up with too many of one or the other, and thatslife. Libraries, for example, if you think your book has a potential market with


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libraries, do prefer hardcover. Theyll buy a soft cover book if they feel they havedemand for it.

John: Pete, Ive noticed, and this may help Steve tell me what you think about this Ive noticed the trend in business books, for example, a lot of first-run businessbooks are being done nowadays with soft cover.

Pete: I think thats true.

John: Because of that, if you want to economize, a first-edition business book in softcover can have high credibility.

Pete: The traditional large publishers would release a book in hardcover and then theycome back, and in that way, they skim the cream off because the hardcover is theexpensive edition. Then they re-release it as soft cover trade paperback they callit. Then that gets the next layer. If its a popular book, then its released as a mass-market, which is the books you buy in the supermarket and drugstore.

They try to sift the market as many times as they can on any particular title. Forthe small publisher or the self-publisher, thats not a business model that you canafford to do. You need to decide the format of the book thats appropriate to themarket that you can sell the most of. There are cases where having a split run isproper.


Barbara: I have InDesign and Im not proficient with it, but Im pretty familiar with it, andhave designed some stuff. I have a very strong sense of design but Im not a book

designer. I have a very strong sense of how I want this formatted. What aboutworking with a book designer to do an initial consultation to see if my ideas areeven correct for my target group? Then going ahead, coming back, and having thedesigner edit, tweak and do all that based upon the work that Ive done as Ivegone?

Pete: Ive worked with a number of clients, and other designers will do the same, wherethe client does the physical labor of laying out the book, but I help them with thedesign. Sometimes its all done up front. I create some templates and they goaway and they do it and maybe I check it later or maybe I dont. Other timesweve gone back and forth a bit. I bill on the hour for that.

Barbara There is a model out there for doing that?

Pete: There is a model. Different designers handle it differently. Some dont want to bebothered. Some do.

Barbara: Thank you.


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Dar: I have a question for you about the quantity. When you were talking about howdifficult it is to wring out the errors in the manuscript, I began rethinking myeconomics of quantity and thinking that it makes a lot of sense to have a smallquantity just because of that - the initial quantity. What do you think?

Pete: Its done a lot. I did an initial bound-galley run, which I distributed. Actually, Isold some copies at an event that was coming. I got feedback on errors that werefound in that, as well as I had another proofreading cycle before I went to press,and I eventually printed 2,000 copies.

Dar: If you change it just to fix errors, what do you call the second printing?

Pete: The second printing.

Dar: It doesnt have to have major content change?

Pete: No. There are printings and there are editions.

Dar: Right.

Pete: A book can have multiple printings and the most popular books, you hear themsay, Oh, they printed three million copies of a book. Frankly, they did six runsof a half a million. The reality is that there are subsequent printings, however, anew edition will generally have anywhere from 10% to 20% new or revisedmaterial.

Dar: Thanks.

John: We have time for one more question.

Bonnie: Hi, Pete. How are you?

Pete: Fine.

John: Bonnie called you once before with question, Pete.

Bonnie: It was about the color books on home staging. I wanted to let everyone know that

if they are looking for a graphic designer in Ontario, that graphic design is agovernment-sanctioned profession now. We have designation called RegisteredGraphic Designer of Ontario, so RGD. If anybody wants a graphic designer aprofessional then they can go to the website and actually find one in Ontario.

Pete: Thats a plus. I would quickly point out, book design is not necessarily an areathat every designer has studied.


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