The post below was originally posted on April 20, 2010.

Fire your Book Designer!

No, I’m just kidding. Please don’t fire your book designer (if you have one). They are amazing people who know exactly what to do to make your book belong on the shelves at Barnes and Noble. Surprisingly enough, however, they charge for this service. The audacity! [AN: That's sarcasm!] As such, we understand it’s not feasible for every author to hire a pro. It’s okay!

While it would take a year of blog posts to discuss every habit of highly effective book designers, the good news is that there are a few simple rules to keep in mind that will make a world of difference in how your book is perceived. This go-around, we’re focusing on body copy or interior layout design. That is, the “meat-and-potatoes” text in your book, where all the magic happens. Since this is where your readers are going to spend the vast majority of their time with your book, let’s be sure they’re not cursing the gods of printing when they do so. (more…)

Once upon a time in a far away land called Tallahassee, there lived two young maidens named Toni and Shannon who had so much fun in college that they ran out of money…so they had to get jobs.

That’s the short version of the story that led to mine and Toni’s first jobs in college as graphic designers for Lifetouch Church Directories and Portraits. Having had our experience with retail and wanting desperately to avoid returning to it, we happened upon a pair of jobs where we could work together creating beautiful designs for church directories. On the surface, it seemed like a dream.

In reality, however, it was a little different.

Most of the churches in our territory were not in the metropolis of Tallahassee, but in the tiny towns speckled across the rolling hills of South Georgia and North Florida where the sound of banjos echoed in the wind. We conducted our meetings in fellowship halls with blue haired ladies who had been on the Church Directory Committee since before we were born. In previous years their directories were made by cutting and pasting (literally–with no CTRL+C shortcuts) photos onto blank paper and handwriting captions below. Us trying to explain graphic design to them was like trying to explain string theory to a four year-old. They were sweet and patient with us, but we may as well have been explaining our services to them in Chinese.

Somehow we survived two years at that job and along the way learned some valuable lessons–especially when it comes to communication. Designing for someone else requires that you’re able to speak the same language. You don’t have to know how to design and the designer doesn’t have to know how to write, but you must have some common ground to get a quality product you can both be proud of.

So without further ado, I give you (drumroll please)…. (more…)